UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS 
 
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 THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 I.OMlOX : miXTED Hi' 
 AXD PABLIAJIEXT sTUEET
 
 BEMINISCENCES 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CAELYLE 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 
 
 IX TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GKEEN, AND CO. 
 
 1881 
 
 All riyhtt reserved
 
 : 
 
 L
 
 STACK ANNEX 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN the summer of 1871 Mr. Carlyle placed in my 
 hands a collection of MSS. of which he desired me 
 to take charge, and to publish, should I think fit to 
 do so, after he was gone. They consisted of letters 
 written by his wife to himself and to other friends 
 during the period of her married life, with the 
 ' rudiments ' of a preface of his own, giving an 
 account of her family, her childhood, and their own 
 experience together, from their first acquaintance 
 till her death. They were married in 1826; Mrs. 
 Carlyle died suddenly in 1866. Between these two 
 periods Carlyle's active literary life was comprised ; 
 and he thought it unnecessary that more than these 
 letters contained should be made known, or attempted 
 to be made known, about himself or his personal 
 history. The essential part of his life was in his 
 works, which those who chose could read. The
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 private part of it was a matter in which the world 
 had no concern. Enough would be found, told by one 
 who knew him better than anyone else knew him, 
 to satisfy such curiosity as there might be. His 
 object was rather to leave a monument to a singu- 
 larly gifted woman, who, had she so pleased, might 
 have made a name for herself, and for his sake had 
 voluntarily sacrificed ambition and fortune. 
 
 The letters had been partially prepared for the 
 press by short separate introductions and explanatory 
 notes. But Carlyle warned me that before they 
 were published they would require anxious revision. 
 Written with the unreserve of confidential commu- 
 nications, they contained anecdotes, allusions, re- 
 flections, expressions of opinion and feeling, which 
 were intended obviously for no eye save that of the 
 person to whom they were addressed. He believed 
 at the time I speak of, that his own life was near its 
 end, and seeing the difficulty in which I might be 
 placed, he left me at last with discretion to destroy 
 the whole of them, should I find the task of discrimi- 
 nating too intricate a problem. 
 
 The expectation of an early end was perhaps 
 suggested by the wish for it. He could no longer 
 write. His right hand was disabled. His tern-
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 perament did not suit with dictation, and he was 
 impatient of an existence which he could no longer 
 turn to any useful purpose. He lingered on, how- 
 ever, year after year, and it gradually became known 
 to him that his wishes would not protect him from 
 biographers, and that an account of his life would 
 certainly be tried, perhaps by more than one person. 
 A true description of it he did not believe that any 
 one could give, not even his closest friend ; but there 
 might be degrees of falsity ; and since a biography 
 of some kind there was to be, he decided at last to 
 extend his original commission to me, and to make 
 over to me all his private papers, journals, notebooks, 
 letters, and unfinished or neglected writings. 
 
 Being a person of most methodical habits, he had 
 preserved every letter which he had ever received of 
 not entirely trifling import. His mother, his wife, 
 his brothers, and many of his friends had kept as 
 carefully every letter from himself. The most re- 
 markable of his contemporaries had been among his 
 correspondents English, French, Italian, German, 
 and American. Goethe had recognised his ge- 
 nius, and had written to him often, advising and 
 encouraging. His own and Mrs. Carlyle's journals 
 were records of their most secret thoughts. All
 
 viii Prejace. 
 
 these Mr. Cavlyle, scarcely remembering what they 
 contained, but with characteristic fearlessness, gave 
 me leave to use as I might please. 
 
 Material of such a character makes my duty in 
 one respect an easy one. I have not to relate Mr. 
 Carlyle's history, or describe his character. He is 
 his own biographer, and paints his own portrait. 
 But another difficulty arises from the extent of the 
 resources thrown open to me. His own letters are 
 as full of matter as the richest of his published works. 
 His friends were not common men, and in writing 
 to him they wrote their best. Of the many thousand 
 letters in my possession, there is hardly one which, 
 either on its special merits or through its connec- 
 tion with something which concerned him, does not 
 deserve to be printed. Selection is indispensable ; 
 a middle way must be struck between too much and 
 too little. I have been guided largely, however, by 
 Carlyle's personal directions to me, and such a way 
 will, I trust, be discovered. 
 
 Meanwhile, on examining the miscellaneous MSS. 
 I found among them various sketches and reminis- 
 cences, one written in a notebook fifty years ago on 
 hearing in London of his father's death ; another of 
 Edward Irving; another of Lord Jeffrey; others
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 { these brief and slight), of Southey and Wordsworth. 
 In addition there was a long narrative, or fragments 
 of a narrative, designed as material for the introduc- 
 tion to Mrs. Carlyle's letters. These letters would 
 now have to be rearranged with his own ; and an 
 introduction, under the shape which had been 
 intended for it, would be no longer necessary. The 
 ' Keminiscences ' appeared to me to be far too valu- 
 able to be broken up and employed in any composition 
 of my own, and I told Mr. Carlyle that I thought 
 they ought to be printed with the requisite omissions 
 immediately after his own death. He agreed with 
 me that it should be so, and at one time it was pro- 
 posed that the type should be set up while he was 
 still alive, and could himself revise what he had 
 written. He found, however, that the effort would 
 be too much for him, and the reader has here before 
 him Mr. Carlyle's own handiwork, but without his last 
 touches, not edited by himself, not corrected by him- 
 self, perhaps most of it not intended for publication, 
 and written down merely as an occupation, for his 
 own private satisfaction. 
 
 The Introductory Fragments were written im- 
 mediately after his wife's death; the account of 
 Irving belongs to the autumn and winter which
 
 x P/'cfacc. 
 
 followed. So singular was his condition at this time, 
 that he was afterwards unconscious what he had done ; 
 and when ten years later I found the Irving MS. and 
 asked him about it, he did not know to what I was 
 alluding. The sketch of Jeffrey was written imme- 
 
 O 
 
 diately after. Some parts of the introduction I have 
 reserved for the biography, into which they will most 
 conveniently fall ; the rest, from the point where 
 they form a consecutive story, I have printed with 
 only a few occasional reservations. 'Southey' and 
 ' Wordsworth,' being merely detached notes of a few 
 personal recollections, I have attached as an appen- 
 dix. 
 
 Nothing more remains to be said about these 
 papers, save to repeat, for clearness' sake, that they 
 are published with Mr. Carlyle's consent but with- 
 out his supervision. The detailed responsibility is 
 therefore entirely my own. I will add for the con- 
 venience of the general public, the few chief points 
 of his outward life. He was the son of a village 
 mason, born at Ecclefechan in Annandale, December 
 4th, 1795. He was educated first at Ecclefechan 
 school. In 1806 he was sent to the Grammar 
 School at Annan, and in 1809 to Edinburgh Univer- 
 sity. In 1814 he was appointed mathematical usher
 
 Preface. xi 
 
 at Annan, and in 1816 schoolmaster at Kirkcaldy. In 
 1818 he gave up his situation, and supported himself 
 by taking pupils at Edinburgh. In 1822 he became 
 private tutor in the family of Mr. Charles Buller, 
 Charles Buller the younger, who was afterwards so 
 brilliantly distinguished in Parliament, being his 
 pupil. While in this capacity he wrote his ' Life of 
 Schiller,' and translated < Wilhelm Meister.' In 1826 
 he married. He lived for eighteen months at 
 Comley Bank, on the north side of Edinburgh. He 
 then removed to Craigenputtoch, a moorland farm in 
 Dumfriesshire belonging to his wife's mother, where 
 he remained for seven years, writing ' Sartor 
 Kesartus ' there, and nearly all his Miscellanies. In 
 1834 he left Scotland and settled in London, at 
 5 Cheyne Eow, Chelsea; and there continued with- 
 out further change till his death. 
 
 J. A. F.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 JAMES CARLYLE OF ECCLEFECHAN 
 
 EDWARD IRVING 67
 
 BEMINISCENCES, 
 
 JAMES CARLYLE, OF ECCLEFECHAN, 
 MASON. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 JAMES CARLYLES 
 
 ON Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1832, I received tidings that 
 my dear and worthy father had departed out of this 
 world. He was called away by a death apparently 
 of the mildest, on Sunday morning about six. He 
 had taken what was thought a bad cold on the 
 Monday preceding, but rose every day and was some- 
 times out of doors. Occasionally he was insensible 
 (as pain usually soon made him of late years), but 
 when spoken to he recollected himself. He was up 
 and at the kitchen fire (at Scotsbrig 2 ), on the Satur- 
 day evening about six, but was evidently growing fast 
 worse in breathing. ' About ten o'clock he fell into a 
 sort of stupor,' writes my sister Jane, ' still breathing 
 higher and with greater difficulty. He spoke little 
 to any of us, seemingly unconscious of what he did, 
 came over the bedside, and offered up a prayer to 
 Heaven in such accents as it is impossible to forget. 
 1 He departed almost without a struggle,' adds she, 
 
 1 Written in London in January 1832. 
 
 2 A farm near Ecclef echan occupied by James Carlyle during 
 the last sis. years of his life. 
 
 u 2
 
 4 James Carh/Ic. 
 
 ' this morning at half-past six.' My mother adds, in 
 her own hand, ' It is God that has done it. Be still, 
 my dear children. Your affectionate mother. God 
 support us all.' The funeral is to be on Friday, 
 the present date is Wednesday night. This stroke, 
 altogether unexpected at the time, but which I have 
 been long anticipating in general, falls heavy on me, 
 as such needs must, yet not so as to stun me or 
 unman me. Natural tears have come to my relief. 
 I can look at my dear father, and that section of the 
 past which he has made alive for me, in a certain 
 sacred sanctified light, and give way to what 
 thoughts rise in me without feeling that they are 
 weak and useless. 
 
 The time till the funeral was past I instantly 
 determined on passing with my wife only, and all 
 others were excluded. I have written to my mother 
 and to John, 1 have walked far and much, chiefly in 
 the Kegent's Park, and considered about many things, 
 if so were that I might accomplish this problem, to 
 see clearly what my present calamity means what 
 I have lost and what lesson my loss was to teach me. 
 
 As for the departed we ought to say that he was 
 taken home ' like a shock of corn fully ripe.' He 
 ' had finished the work that was given him to do ' 
 
 1 Mr. Carlyle's brjtber.
 
 James Carlyle. 5 
 
 and finished it (very greatly more than the most) 
 as became a man. He was summoned too before he 
 had ceased to be interesting to be loveable. (He 
 was to the last the pleasantest man I had to speak 
 with in Scotland.) For many years too he had the 
 end ever in his eye, and was studying to make all 
 preparation for what in his strong way he called 
 often * that last, that awful change.' Even at every 
 new parting of late years I have noticed him wring 
 my hand with a tenderer pressure, as if he felt 
 that one other of our few meetings here was over. 
 Mercifully also has he been spared me till I am abler 
 to bear his loss ; till by manifold struggles I too, as 
 he did, feel my feet on the Everlasting rock, and 
 through time with its death, can in some degree see 
 into eternity with its life. So that I have repeated, 
 not with unwet eyes, let me hope likewise not with 
 unsoftened heart, those old and for ever true words, 
 ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord ; they do 
 rest from their labours, and their works follow them.' 
 Yes, their works follow them. The force that had 
 been lent my father he honourably expended in 
 manful welldoing. A portion of this planet bears 
 beneficent traces of his strong hand and strong 
 head. Nothing that he undertook to do but he did 
 it faithfully and like a true man. I shall look on
 
 6 James Carlylc. 
 
 the houses he built with a certain proud interest. 
 They stand firm and sound to the heart all over his 
 little district. Xo one that comes after him -will 
 ever say, Here was the finger of a hollow eye-servant.' 
 They are little texts for me of the gospel of man's 
 free will. Nor will his deeds and sayings in any 
 case be found unworthy not false and barren, but 
 genuine and fit. Nay, am not I also the humble 
 James Carlyle's work ? I owe him much more than 
 existence, I owe him a noble inspiring example 
 (now that I can read it in that rustic character). 
 It was he exclusively that determined on educating 
 me; that from his small hard -earned funds sent me 
 to school and college, and made me whatever I am 
 or may become. Let me not mourn for my father, 
 let me do worthily of him. So shall he still live 
 even here in me, and his worth plant itself 
 honourably forth into new generations. 
 
 I purpose now, while the impression is more pure 
 and clear within me, to mark down the main things 
 I can recollect of my father. To myself, if I live to 
 after years, it may be instructive and interesting, as 
 the past grows ever holier the farther we leave it. 
 My mind is calm enough to do it deliberately, and 
 to do it truly. The thought of that pale earnest face 
 which even now lies stiffened into death in that bed
 
 James Carlyle. 7 
 
 at Scotsbrig, with the Infinite all of worlds looking 
 down on it, will certainly impel me. Neither, 
 should these lines survive myself and be seen by 
 others, can the sight of them do harm to anyone. 
 It is good to know how a true spirit will vindicate 
 itself with truth and freedom through what obstruc- 
 tions soever ; how the acorn cast carelessly into the 
 wilderness will make room for itself and grow to be an 
 oak. This is one of the cases belonging to that class, 
 ' the lives of remarkable men,' in which it has been 
 said, ' paper and ink should least of all be spared.' 
 I call a man remarkable who becomes a true work- 
 man in this vineyard of the Highest. Be his work 
 that of palace building and kingdom founding, or 
 only of delving and ditching, to me it is no matter, 
 or next to none. All human work is transitory, 
 small in itself, contemptible. Only the worker thereof 
 and the spirit that dwelt in him is significant. I 
 proceed without order, or almost any forethought, 
 anxious only to save what I have left and mark it 
 as it lies in me. 
 
 In several respects I consider my father as one 
 of the most interesting men I have known. He was 
 a man of perhaps the very largest natural endow- 
 ment of any it has been my lot to converse with.
 
 8 James Cnrlylc. 
 
 None of us will ever forget that bold glowing style 
 of his, flowing free from his untutored soul, full of 
 metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor 
 was) with all manner of potent words which he 
 appropriated and applied with a surprising accuracy 
 you often would not guess whence brief, energetic, 
 and which I should say conveyed the most perfect 
 picture, definite, clear, not in ambitious colours but 
 in full white sunlight, of all the dialects I have ever 
 listened to. Nothing did I ever hear him undertake 
 to render visible which did not become almost 
 ocularly so. Never shall we again hear such speech 
 as that was. The whole district knew of it and 
 laughed joyfully over it, not knowing how otherwise 
 to express the feeling it gave them; emphatic I 
 have heard him beyond all men. In anger he had 
 no need of oaths, his words were like sharp arrows 
 that smote into the very heart. The fault was 
 that he exaggerated (which tendency I also inherit) 
 yet only in description and for the sake chiefly of 
 humorous effect. He was a man of rigid, even 
 scrupulous veracity. I have often heard him turn 
 back when he thought his strong words were mis- 
 leading, and correct them into mensurative accuracy. 
 I call him a natural man, singularly free from all 
 manner of affectation ; he was among the last of the
 
 James Carlyle. 9 
 
 true men which Scotland on the old system produced 
 or can produce ; a man healthy in body and mind, 
 fearing God, and diligently -working on God's earth 
 with contentment, hope, and unwearied resolution. 
 He was never visited with doubt. The old theorem 
 of the universe was sufficient for him ; and he 
 worked well in it and in all senses successfully and 
 wisely as few can do. So quick is the motion of 
 transition becoming, the new generation almost to a 
 man must make their belly their God, and alas, find 
 even that an empty one. Thus, curiously enough 
 and blessedly, he stood a true man on the verge of 
 the old, while his son stands here lovingly surveying 
 him on the verge of the new, and sees the possibility 
 of also being true there. God make the possibility, 
 blessed possibility, into a reality. 
 
 A virtue he had which I should learn to imitate. 
 He never spoke of what was disagreeable and past. 
 I have often wondered and admired at this. The 
 thing that he had nothing to do with, he did nothing 
 with. His was a healthy mind. In like manner I 
 have seen him always when we young ones, half 
 roguishly, and provokingly without doubt, were per- 
 haps repeating sayings of his, sit as if he did not hear 
 us at all. Never once did I know him utter a word, 
 only once, that I remember, give a look in such a case.
 
 io Jamr* C<irhjle. 
 
 Another virtue the example of which has passed 
 strongly into me was his settled placid indifference 
 to the clamours or the murmurs of public opinion. 
 For the judgment of those that had no right or 
 power to judge him, he seemed simply to care 
 nothing at all. He very rarely spoke of despising 
 such things. He contented himself with altogether 
 disregarding them. Hollow babble it was for him, a 
 thing, as Fichte said, that did not exist ; das gar 
 nicht existirte. There was something truly great 
 in this. The very perfection of it hid from you the 
 extent of the attainment. 
 
 Or rather let us call it a new phasis of the health 
 which in mind as in body was conspicuous in him. 
 Like a healthy man, he wanted only to get along 
 with his task. Whatsoever could not forward him in 
 this (and how could public opinion and much else of 
 the like sort do it ?) was of no moment to him, was 
 not there for him. 
 
 This great maxim of philosophy he had gathered 
 by the teaching of nature alone that man was 
 created to work not to speculate, or feel, or dream. 
 Accordingly he set his whole heart thitherwards. 
 He did work wisely and unweariedly (Ohne Hast 
 aber ohne Rast} and perhaps performed more with 
 the tools he had than any man I now know. It
 
 James Carlyle. 1 1 
 
 should have made me sadder than it did to hear the 
 young ones sometimes complaining of his slow 
 punctuality and thoroughness. He would leave 
 nothing till it was done. Alas ! the age of substance 
 and solidity is gone for the time ; that of show and 
 hollow superficiality in all senses is in full course. 
 
 And yet he was a man of open sense ; wonder- 
 fully so. I could have entertained him for days 
 talking of any matter interesting to man. He de- 
 lighted to hear of all things that were worth talking 
 of : the mode of living men had the mode of work- 
 ing; their opinions, virtues, whole spiritual and 
 temporal environments. 
 
 It is some two years ago (in summer) since I 
 entertained him highly he was hoeing turnips and 
 perhaps I helped him with an account of the 
 character and manner of existence of Francis Jeffrey. 
 Another evening he enjoyed probably it was on 
 this very visit with the heartiest relish my de- 
 scription of the people, I think, of Turkey. The 
 Chinese had astonished him much. In some 
 magazine he had got a sketch of Macartney's 
 1 Embassy,' the memory of which never left him. 
 Adam Smith's ' "Wealth of Nations,' greatly as it lay 
 out of his course, he had also fallen in with, and 
 admired and understood and remembered so far as
 
 12 James Carlijie. 
 
 he had any business with it. I once wrote him 
 about my being in Smithfield Market seven years 
 ago, of my seeing St. Paul's. Both things interested 
 him heartily and dwelt with him. I had hoped to 
 tell him much of what I saw in this second visit, and 
 that many a long cheerful talk would have given us 
 both some sunny hours, but es konnte nimmer seyn. 
 Patience ! hope ! 
 
 At the same time he had the most entire and 
 open contempt for all idle tattle ; what he called 
 clatter. Any talk that had meaning in it he could 
 listen to. What had no meaning in it above all, 
 what seemed false he absolutely could and would 
 not hear, but abruptly turned aside from it, or if that 
 might not suit, with the besom of destruction swept 
 it far away from him. Long may we remember his 
 ' I don't believe thee ; ' his tongue-paralysing, cold, 
 indifferent ' Hah ! ' I should say of him as I did of 
 our sister ' whom we lost, that he seldom or never 
 spoke except actually to convey an idea. Measured 
 by quantity of words, he was a talker of fully 
 average copiousness; by extent of meaning com- 
 municated, he was the most copious I have listened 
 to. How in few sentences he would sketch you off 
 an entire biography, an entire object or transaction, 
 1 Margaret, who died in 1831.
 
 James Carlyle. 13 
 
 keen, clear, rugged, genuine, completely rounded 
 In. His words came direct from the heart by the 
 inspiration of the moment. 
 
 4 It is no idle tale,' he said to some laughing 
 rustics while stating in his strong way some com- 
 plaint against them, and their laughter died into 
 silence. Dear, good father ! There looked honestly 
 through those clear earnest eyes a sincerity that 
 compelled belief and regard. ' Moffat,' said he one 
 day to an incorrigible reaper, ' thou hast had every 
 feature of a bad shearer high, rough, and little on't. 
 Thou maun alter thy figure or slant the bog/ point- 
 ing to the man's road homewards. 
 
 He was irascible, choleric, and we all dreaded his 
 wrath, yet passion never mastered him or maddened 
 him. It rather inspired him with new vehemence 
 of insight and more piercing emphasis of wisdom. It 
 must have been a bold man that did not quail before 
 that face when glowing with indignation, grounded, 
 for so it ever was, on the sense of right and in resis- 
 tance of wrong. More than once has he lifted up his 
 strong voice in tax courts and the like before ' the 
 gentlemen ' (what he knew of highest among men), 
 and rending asunder official sophisms, thundered 
 even into their deaf ears the indignant sentence of 
 natural justice to the conviction of all. Oh, why
 
 14 James Carbjlc. 
 
 did we laugh at these things while we loved them ? 
 There is a tragic greatness and sacredness in them 
 now. 
 
 I can call my father a brave man (ein tapferer). 
 Man's face he did not fear ; God he always feared. 
 His reverence I think was considerably mixed with 
 fear ; yet not slavish fear, rather awe, as of unutter- 
 able depths of silence through which flickered a trem- 
 bling hope. How he used to speak of death, especi- 
 ally in late years or rather to be silent, and look at 
 it ! There was no feeling in him here that he cared 
 to hide. He trembled at the really terrible ; the 
 mock terrible he cared nought for. That last act of 
 his life, when in the last agony, with the thick 
 ghastly vapours of death rising round him to choke 
 him, he burst through and called with a man's 
 voice on the Great God to have mercy on him 
 that was like the epitome and concluding summary 
 of his whole life. God gave him strength to wrestle 
 with the King of Terrors, and as it were even then 
 to prevail. All his strength came from God and ever 
 sought new nourishment there. God be thanked 
 for it. 
 
 Let me not mourn that my father's force is all 
 spent, that his valour wars no longer. Has it not 
 gained the victory? Let me imitate him rather.
 
 James Cttrlylc. 15 
 
 Let his courageous heart beat anew iu me, that 
 when oppression and opposition unjustly threaten, I 
 too may rise with his spirit to front them and sub- 
 due them. 
 
 On the whole, ought I not to rejoice that God 
 was pleased to give me such a father ; that from 
 earliest years I had the example of a real Man of 
 God's own making continually before me ? Let me 
 learn of him. Let me write my books as he built 
 his houses, and walk as blamelessly through this 
 shadow world ; if God so will, to rejoin him at last. 
 Amen. 
 
 Alas ! such is the mis-education of these days, 
 it is only among those that are called the unedu- 
 cated classes those educated by experience that 
 you can look for a Man. Even among these, such a 
 sight is growing daily rarer. My father, in several 
 respects, has not, that I can think of, left his fel- 
 low. Ultimus Romanorum. Perhaps among Scottish 
 peasants what Samuel Johnson was among English 
 authors. I have a sacred pride in my peasant 
 father, and would not exchange him, even now, for 
 any king' known to me. Gold and the guinea 
 stamp the Man and the clothes of the man. Let 
 me thank God for that greatest of blessings, and 
 strive to live worthily of it.
 
 1 6 James Carlyle. 
 
 Though from the heart, and practically even 
 more than in words, an independent man, he was by 
 no means an insubordinate one. His bearing to- 
 wards his superiors I consider noteworthy of a 
 piece with himself. I think in early life, when 
 working in Springhill for a Sir W. Maxwell the 
 grandfather of the present Baronet he had got an 
 early respect impressed upon him for the character 
 as well as station of a gentleman. I have heard him 
 often describe the grave wisdom and dignified de- 
 portment of that Maxwell as of a true ' ruler of the 
 people.' It used to remind me of the gentlemen in 
 Goethe. Sir William, like those he ruled over, 
 and benignantly or at least gracefully and earnestly 
 governed, has passed away. But even for the mere 
 clothes-screens of rank, my father testified no con- 
 tempt. He spoke of them in public or private 
 without acerbity; testified for them the outward 
 deference which custom and convenience prescribed, 
 and felt no degradation therein. Their inward 
 claim to regard was a thing which concerned them, 
 not him. I love to figure him addressing these 
 men, with bared head, by the title of ' your honour,' 
 with a manner respectful yet unembarrassed ; a 
 certain manful dignity looking through his own fine 
 face, with his noble grey head bent patiently to the,
 
 James Carlyle. 17 
 
 alas ! unworthy. Such conduct is, perhaps, no 
 longer possible. 
 
 Withal, he had in general a grave natural 
 politeness. I have seen him, when the women were 
 perhaps all in anxiety about the disorder etc., usher 
 men in with true hospitality into his mean house, 
 without any grimace of apologies, or the smallest 
 seeming embarrassment. Were the house but a 
 cabin, it was his, and they were welcome to him, 
 and what it held. This was again the man. His 
 life was ' no idle tale ; ' not a He but a truth, which 
 whoso liked was welcome to come and examine. 
 * An earnest toilsome life,' which had also a serious 
 issue. 
 
 The more I reflect on it, the more I must 
 admire how completely nature had taught him ; 
 how completely he was devoted to his work, to the 
 task of his life, and content to let all pass by un- 
 heeded that had not relation to this. It is a singu- 
 lar fact, for example, that though a man of such 
 openness and clearness, he had never, I believe, 
 read three pages of Burns' poems. Not even when 
 all about him became noisy and enthusiastic, I the 
 loudest, on that matter, did he feel it worth while 
 to renew his investigation of it, or once turn his 
 face towards it. The poetry he liked (he did not 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 1 8 James Carlyle. 
 
 call it poetry) was truth, and the wisdom of reality. 
 Burns, indeed, could have done nothing for him. 
 As high a greatness hung over his world as over 
 that of Burns the ever-present greatness of the 
 Infinite itself. Neither was he, like Burns, called 
 to rebel against the world, but to labour patiently 
 at his task there, uniting the possible with the 
 necessary to bring out the real, wherein also lay an 
 ideal. Burns could not have in any way strength- 
 ened him in this course ; and therefore was for 
 him a phenomenon merely. Nay, rumour had been 
 so busy with Burns, and destiny and his own desert 
 had in very deed so marred his name, that the good 
 rather avoided him. Yet it was not with aversion 
 that my father regarded Burns ; at worst with in- 
 difference and neglect. I have heard him speak of 
 once seeing him standing in 'Rob Scott's smithy' 
 (at Ecclefechan, no doubt superintending some 
 work). He heard one say, * There is the poet 
 Burns.' He went out to look, and saw a man with 
 boots on, like a well-dressed farmer, walking down 
 the village on the opposite side of the burn. This 
 was all the relation these two men ever had ; they 
 were very nearly coevals. 1 I knew Robert Burns, 
 and I knew my father. Yet were you to ask me 
 1 Burns died the year after Thomas Carlyle was born.
 
 James Carlyle. 19 
 
 which had the greater natural faculty, I might 
 perhaps actually pause before replying. Burns had 
 an infinitely wider education, my father a far whole- 
 somer. Besides, the one was a man of musical 
 utterance ; the other wholly a man of action, with 
 speech subservient thereto. Never, of all the men I 
 have seen, has one come personally in my way in 
 whom the endowment from nature and the arena 
 from fortune were so utterly out of all proportion. 
 I have said this often, and partly know it. As a 
 man of speculation had culture ever unfolded him 
 he must have gone wild and desperate as Burns ; 
 but he was a man of conduct, and work keeps all 
 right. What strange shapeable creatures we are ! 
 
 My father's education was altogether of the 
 worst and most limited. I believe he was never 
 more than three months at any school. What he 
 learned there showed what he might have learned. 
 A solid knowledge of arithmetic, a fine antique 
 handwriting these, with other limited practical et- 
 ceteras, were all the things he ever heard mentioned 
 as excellent. He had no room to strive for more. 
 Poetry, fiction in general, he had universally seen 
 treated as not only idle, but false and criminal. 
 This was the spiritual element he had lived in, 
 almost to old age. But greatly his most important 
 o 2
 
 2O James Carlyle. 
 
 culture he had gathered and this, too, by his own 
 endeavours from the better part of the district, the 
 religious men ; to whom, as to the most excellent, his 
 own nature gradually attached and attracted him. 
 He was religious with the consent of his whole 
 faculties. Without religion he would have been 
 nothing. Indeed, his habit of intellect was tho- 
 roughly free, and even incredulous. And strongly 
 enough did the daily example of this work after- 
 wards on me. 'Putting out the natural eye of 
 his mind to see better with a telescope ' this 
 was no scheme for him. But he was in Annan- 
 dale, and it was above fifty years ago, 1 and a 
 Gospel was still preached there to the heart of a 
 man in the tones of a man. Eeligion was the 
 pole-star for my father. Eude and uncultivated as 
 he otherwise was, it made him and kept him ' in all 
 points a man.' 
 
 Oh ! when I think that all the area in boundless 
 space he had seen was limited to a circle of some 
 fifty miles diameter (he never in his life was farther 
 or elsewhere so far from home as at Craigen- 
 puttoch), and all his knowledge of the boundless 
 time was derived from his Bible and what the oral 
 memories of old men could give him, and his own 
 1 Written in 1832.
 
 James Carlyle. 21 
 
 could gather ; and yet, that he was such, I could 
 take shame to myself. I feel to my father so 
 great though so neglected, so generous also to- 
 wards me a strange tenderness, and mingled pity 
 and reverence peculiar to the case, infinitely soft 
 and near my heart. Was he not a sacrifice to me ? 
 Had I stood in his place, could he not have stood in 
 mine, and more ? Thou good father ! well may I for 
 ever honour thy memory. Surely that act was not 
 without its reward. And was not nature great, out 
 of such materials to make such a man ? 
 
 Though genuine and coherent, * living and life- 
 giving,' he was, nevertheless, but half developed. 
 We had all to complain that we durst not freely 
 love him. His heart seemed as if walled in ; he 
 had not the free means to unbosom himself. My 
 mother has owned to me that she could never 
 understand him ; that her affection and (with all 
 their little strifes) her admiration of him was ob- 
 structed. It seemed as if an atmosphere of fear 
 repelled us from him. To me it was especially so. 
 Till late years, when he began to respect me more, 
 and, as it were, to look up to me for instruction, 
 for protection (a relation unspeakably beautiful), I 
 was ever more or less awed and chilled before him. 
 My heart and tongue played freely only with my
 
 22 James Carlyle. 
 
 mother. He had an air of deepest gravity, even 
 sternness. Yet he could laugh with his whole 
 throat, and his whole heart. I have often seen him 
 weep, too; his voice would thicken and his lips 
 curve while reading the Bible. He had a merciful 
 heart to real distress, though he hated idleness, and 
 for imbecility and fatuity had no tolerance. Once 
 and I think once only I saw him in a passion of 
 tears. It was when the remains of my mother's 
 fever hung upon her, in 1817, and seemed to 
 threaten the extinction of her reason. We were all 
 of us nigh desperate, and ourselves mad. He burst 
 at last into quite a torrent of grief, cried piteously, 
 and threw himself on the floor and lay moaning. I 
 wondered, and had no words, no tears. It was as if 
 a rock of granite had melted, and was thawing into 
 water. What unknown seas of feeling lie in man, 
 and will from time to time break through ! 
 
 He was no niggard, but truly a wisely generous 
 economist. He paid his men handsomely and with 
 overplus. He had known poverty in the shape of 
 actual want (in boyhood) and never had one penny 
 which he knew not well how he had come by, 
 (' picked,' as he said, * out of the hard stone,') yet 
 he ever parted with money as a man that knew 
 when he was getting money's worth ; that could give
 
 James Carlyle. 23 
 
 also, and with a frank liberality when the fit occasion 
 called. I remember with the peculiar kind of 
 tenderness that attaches to many similar things in his 
 life, one, or rather, I think, two times, when he sent 
 me to buy a quarter of a pound of tobacco, to give 
 to some old women, whom he had had gathering 
 potatoes for him. He nipt off for each a handsome 
 leash, and handed it her by way of over and above 
 This was a common principle with him. I must 
 have been twelve or thirteen when I fetched this 
 tobacco. I love to think of it. ' The little that a 
 just man hath.' The old women are now perhaps 
 all dead. He too is dead, but the gift still lives. 
 
 He was a man singularly free from affectation. 
 The feeling that he had not he could in no wise 
 pretend to have ; however ill the want of it might 
 look, he simply would not and did not put on the 
 show of it. 
 
 Singularly free from envy I may reckon him too, 
 the rather if I consider his keen temper and the 
 value he naturally (as a man wholly for action) set 
 upon success in life. Others that (by better fortune ; 
 none was more industrious or more prudent) had 
 grown richer than he, did not seem to provoke the 
 smallest grudging in him. They were going their 
 path, he going his ; one did not impede the other.
 
 24 James Carlylc. 
 
 He rather seemed to look at such with a kind of 
 respect, a desire to learn from them at lowest with 
 indifference. 
 
 In like manner, though he above all things 
 (indeed in strictness solely) admired talent, he 
 seemed never to have measured himself anxiously 
 against anyone ; was content to be taught bj 
 whosoever could teach him. One or two men, im- 
 measurably his inferiors in faculty, he, I do believe, 
 looked up to and thought with perfect composure 
 abler minds than himself. 
 
 Complete at the same time was his confidence in 
 his own judgment when it spoke to him decisively. 
 He was one of those few that could believe and 
 know as well as enquire and be of opinion. When I 
 remember how much he admired intellectual force, 
 how much he had of it himself, and yet how un- 
 consciously and contentedly he gave others credit 
 for superiority, I again see the healthy spirit of the 
 genuine man. Nothing could please him better 
 than a well-ordered discourse of reason, the clear 
 solution and exposition of any object, and he knew 
 well in such cases when the nail had been hit, and 
 contemptuously enough recognised when it had 
 been missed. He has said of a bad preacher, * he 
 was like a fly wading among tar.' Clearness, em-
 
 James Carlyle. 25 
 
 phatic clearness, was his highest category of man's 
 thinking power. He delighted always to hear good 
 argument. He would often say, * I would like to 
 hear thee argue with him.' He said this of Jeffrey 
 and me, with an air of such simple earnestness, not 
 two years ago (1830), and it was his true feeling. I 
 have often pleased him much by arguing with men 
 (as many years ago I was prone to do) in his presence. 
 He rejoiced greatly in my success, at all events in 
 my dexterity and manifested force. Others of us he 
 admired for our ' activity,' our practical valour and 
 skill, all of us (generally speaking) for our decent 
 demeanour in the world. It is now one of my 
 greatest blessings (for which I would thank Heaven 
 from the heart) that he lived to see me, through 
 various obstructions, attain some look of doing well. 
 He had ' educated ' me against much advice, I 
 believe, and chiefly, if not solely, from his own noble 
 faith. James Bell, one of our wise men, had told 
 him, ' Educate a boy, and he grows up to despise 
 his ignorant parents.' My father once told me this, 
 and added, * Thou hast not done so ; God be thanked 
 for it.' I have reason to think my father was 
 proud of me (not vain, for he never, except when 
 provoked, openly bragged of ns) ; that here too he 
 lived to see the pleasure of the Lord prosper in his
 
 26 James Carlyle. 
 
 hands. Oh, was it not a happiness for me ! The 
 fame of all this planet were not henceforth so 
 precious. 
 
 He was thrifty, patient, careless of outward 
 accommodation, had a Spartan indifference to all 
 that. When he quarrelled about such things it was 
 rather because some human mismanagement seemed 
 to look through the evil. Food and all else were 
 simply and solely there as the means for doing work. 
 We have lived for months of old (and when he was 
 not any longer poor), because by ourselves, on porridge 
 and potatoes, with no other condiment than what our 
 own cow yielded. Thus are we not now all beggars, 
 as the most like us have become. Mother and 
 father were assiduous, abstemious, frugal without 
 stinginess. They shall not want their reward. 
 Both still knew what they were doing in this world, 
 and why they were here. ' Man's chief end,' my 
 father could have answered from the depths of his 
 soul, ' is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.' 
 By this light he walked, choosing his path, fitting 
 prudence to principle with wonderful skill and man- 
 liness ; through ' the ruins of a falling era,' not once 
 missing his footing. Gro thou, whom by the hard 
 toil of his arms and his mind he has struggled to 
 enlighten better ; go thou, and do likewise
 
 James Carlyle. 27 
 
 His death was unexpected ? Not so ; every morn- 
 ing and every evening, for perhaps sixty years, he had 
 prayed to the Great Father in words which I shall 
 now no more hear him impressively pronounce, 
 * Prepare us for those solemn events, death, judgment, 
 and eternity.' He would pray also, * Forsake us not 
 now when we are old and our heads grown grey.' 
 God did not forsake him. 
 
 Ever since I can remember, his honoured head 
 was grey; indeed he must have been about forty 
 when I was born. It was a noble head ; very large, 
 the upper part of it strikingly like that of the poet 
 Goethe : the mouth again bearing marks of unre- 
 finement, shut indeed and significant, yet loosely 
 compressed (as I have seen in the firmest men if 
 used to hard manual labour), betokening depth, 
 passionateness, force; all in an element not of Ian" 
 guor, yet of toil and patient perennial endurance. 
 A face full of meaning l and earnestness, a man of 
 strength and a man of toil. Jane (Mrs. Carlyle) 
 took a profile of him when she was last in Annandale. 
 It is the only memorial we have left, and worth 
 much to us. He was short of stature, yet shorter 
 than usual only in the limbs; of great muscular 
 
 1 Carlyle breaks off for a moment and writes these words : 
 ' About this hour is the funeral. Irving enters. Unsatisfactory.' 
 He then goes on.
 
 28 James Carlyle. 
 
 strength, far more than even his strong-built frame 
 gave promise of. In all things he was emphatically 
 temperate ; through life guilty (more than can be said 
 of almost any man) of no excess. 
 
 He was born (I think) in the year 1757, at a 
 place called Brownknowe, a small farm not far from 
 Burnswark Hill in Annandale. I have heard him 
 describe the anguish of mind he felt when leaving 
 this place, and taking farewell of a * big stone ' 
 whereon he had been wont to sit in early boyhood 
 tending the cattle. Perhaps there was a thorn tree 
 near it. His heart, he said, was like to burst ; they 
 were removing to Sibbaldry Side, another farm in 
 the valley of Dryfe. He was come to full manhood. 
 The family was exposed to great privations while at 
 Brownknowe. The mother, Mary Gillespie (she had 
 relations at Dryfe sdale) was left with her children, and 
 had not always meal to make them porridge. My 
 father was the second son and fourth child. My 
 grandfather, Thomas Carlyle, after whom I am named, 
 was an honest, vehement, adventurous, but not an in- 
 dustrious man. He used to collect vigorously and 
 rigorously a sum sufficient for his half year's rent 
 (probably some five or six pounds), lay this by, and, 
 for the rest, leaving the mother with her little ones to 
 manage very much as they could, would meanwhile
 
 James Carlyle. 29 
 
 amuse himself, perhaps hunting, most probably with 
 the Laird of Bridekirk (a swashbuckler of those days, 
 composer of * Bridekirk's Hunting '), partly in the 
 character of kinsman, partly of attendant and hench- 
 man. I have heard my father describe the shifts they 
 were reduced to at home. Once, he said, meal, which 
 had perhaps been long scarce, and certainly for some 
 time wanting, arrived at last late at night. The 
 mother proceeded on the spot to make cakes of it, 
 and had no fuel but straw that she tore from the beds 
 (straw lies under the chaff sacks we all slept on) to do 
 it with. The children all rose to eat. Potatoes were 
 little in use then ; a * wechtful ' was stored up to be 
 eaten perhaps about Halloween. My father often 
 told us how he once, with a providence early mani- 
 fested, got possession of four potatoes, and thinking 
 that a time of want might come, hid them carefully 
 against the evil day. He found them long after 
 all grown together ; they had not been needed. 
 I think he once told us his first short clothes were 
 a hull made mostly or wholly of leather. We all 
 only laughed, for it is now long ago. Thou dear 
 father ! Through what stern obstructions was thy 
 way to manhood to be forced, and for us and for our 
 travelling to be made smooth. 
 
 My grandfather, whom I can remember as a
 
 30 James Carlyle. 
 
 slightish, wiry -looking old man, had not possessed the 
 wisdom of his son. Yet perhaps he was more to be 
 pitied than blamed. His mother, whose name I have 
 forgotten, was early left a widow with two of them, in 
 the parish, perhaps in the village, of Middlebie. 
 Thomas, the elder, became a joiner and went to work 
 in Lancashire, perhaps in Lancaster, where he stayed 
 more than one season. He once returned home in 
 winter, partly by ice skating along the Westmore- 
 land and Cumberland lakes. He was in Dumfriesshire 
 in 1745 : saw the Highlanders come through Eccle- 
 fechan over the Border heights as they went down : 
 was at Dumfries among them as they returned back 
 in flight. He had gone, by the Lady of Bridekirk's 
 request, to look after the Laird, whom, as a Whig of 
 some note, they had taken prisoner. His whole 
 adventures there he had minutely described to his 
 children (I too have heard him speak, but briefly 
 and indistinctly, of them): by my uncle Frank I 
 once got a full account of the matter, which shall 
 perhaps be inserted elsewhere. He worked as 
 carpenter, I know not how long, about Middlebie ; 
 then laid aside that craft (except as a side business, 
 for he always had tools which I myself have assisted 
 him in grinding) and went to Brownknowe to farm. 
 In his latter days he was chiefly supported by my
 
 James Carlyle. 31 
 
 father, to whom I remember once hearing him say, 
 with a half-choked tremulous palsied voice, ' Thou 
 hast been a good son to me.' He died in 1804. 
 I well remember the funeral, which I was at, and 
 that I read (being then a good reader), * MacEwen 
 on the Types ' (which I have not seen since, but 
 then partially understood and even liked for its glib 
 smoothness) to the people sitting at the wake. The 
 funeral was in time of snow. All is still very clear to 
 me. The three brothers, my father, Frank, and Tom, 
 spoke together in the dusk on the street of Eccle- 
 fechan, I looking up and listening. Tom proposed 
 that he would bear the whole expense, as he had 
 been ( rather backward during his life,' which offer 
 was immediately rejected. 
 
 Old Thomas Carlyle had been proud and poor. 
 No doubt he was discontented enough. Industry 
 was perhaps more difficult in Annandale then (this 
 I do not think very likely). At all events the man 
 in honour (the man) of those days in that rude 
 border country was a drinker and hunter ; above all, 
 a striker. My grandfather did not drink, but his 
 stroke was ever as ready as his word, and both were 
 sharp enough. He was a fiery man, irascible, indomit- 
 able, of the toughness and springiness of steel. An old 
 market brawl, called the * Ecclefechan Dog-fight,' in
 
 32 James Carlyle. 
 
 which he was a principal, survives in tradition there 
 to this day. My father, who in youth too had been 
 in quarrels, and formidable enough in them, but from 
 manhood upwards abhorred all such things, never 
 once spoke to us of this. My grandfather had a 
 certain religiousness ; but it could not be made 
 dominant and paramount. His life lay in two. I 
 figure him as very miserable, and pardon (as my 
 father did) all his irregularities and unreasons. 
 My father liked in general to speak of him when it 
 came in course. He told us sometimes of his once 
 riding down to Annan (when a boy) behind him, on 
 a sack of barley to be shipped, for which there was 
 then no other mode of conveyance but horseback. 
 On arriving at Annan bridge the people demanded 
 three-halfpence of toll money. This the old man 
 would in no wise pay, for tolls were then reckoned 
 pure imposition, got soon into argument about it, and 
 rather than pay it turned his horse's head aside and 
 swam the river at a dangerous place, to the extreme 
 terror of his boy. Perhaps it was on this same 
 occasion, while the two were on the shore about 
 Whinnyrigg with many others on the same errand, 
 (for a boat had come in, from Liverpool probably, and 
 the country must hasten to ship) that a lad of larger 
 size jeered at the little boy for his ragged coat etc.
 
 James Garlyle, 33 
 
 Whereupon his father, doubtless provoked too, gave 
 him permission to fight the wrongdoer, which he 
 did and with victory. * Man's inhumanity to man.' 
 I must not dwell on these things, yet will men- 
 tion the other brother, my grand-uncle Francis, still 
 remembered by his title, ' the Captain of Middlebie.' 
 He was bred a shoemaker, and like his elder brother 
 went to travel for work and insight. My father 
 once described to me with pity and aversion how 
 Francis had on some occasion taken to drinking and 
 to gaming ' far up in England ' (Bristol ?), had lost all 
 his money and gone to bed drunk. He awoke next 
 morning in horrors, started up, stung by the serpent 
 of remorse, and flinging himself out of bed, broke 
 his leg against a table standing near, and lay there 
 sprawling, and had to lie for weeks, with nothing to 
 pay the shot. Perhaps this was the crisis of his life. 
 Perhaps it was to pay the bill of this very tavern 
 that he went and enlisted himself on board some 
 small-craft man of war. A mutiny (as I have heard) 
 took place, wherein Francis Carlyle with great 
 daring stood by the Captain and quelled the matter, 
 for which service he was promoted to the command of 
 a revenue ship, and sailed therein chiefly about the 
 Solway Seas, and did feats enough, of which perhaps 
 elsewhere. He had retired with dignity on half-pay 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 James Carlyle. 
 
 to his native Middlebie before my birth. I never 
 saw him but once, and then rather memorably. 
 
 My grandfather and he, owing to some sort of 
 cloud and misunderstanding, had not had any inter- 
 course for long ; in which division the two families 
 had joined. But now, when old Thomas was lying 
 on his probable, and as it proved actual, deathbed, 
 the old rugged sea-captain relented, and resolved to 
 see his brother yet once before he died. 
 
 He came in a cart to Ecclefechan (a great 
 enterprise then, for the road was all water-cut, and 
 nigh impassable with roughness). I chanced to be 
 standing by when he arrived. He was a grim, 
 broad, to me almost terrible man, unwieldy so that 
 he could not walk. (My brother John is said to 
 resemble him. He was my prototype of Smollett's 
 Trunnion.) They lifted him up the steep straight 
 stairs in a chair to the room of the dying man. The 
 two old brothers saluted each other, hovering over 
 the brink of the grave. They were both above eighty. 
 In some twenty minutes the arm-chair was seen 
 again descending (my father bore one corner of it 
 in front) ; the old man had parted with his brother 
 for the last time. He went away with few words, 
 but with a face that still dimly haunts me, and I never 
 saw him more. The business at the moment was
 
 James Carlyle. 35 
 
 quite unknown to me, but I gathered it in a day or 
 two, and its full meaning long afterwards grew clear 
 to me. Its outward phasis, now after some twenty- 
 eight years, is plain as I have written. Old Francis 
 also died not long afterwards. 
 
 One vague tradition I will mention, that our 
 humble forefathers dwelt long as farmers at Burrens, 
 the old Koman Station in Middlebie. Once, in times 
 of Border robbery, some Cumberland cattle had 
 been stolen and were chased. The traces of them 
 disappeared at Burrens, and the angry Cumbrians 
 demanded of the poor farmer what had become of 
 them. It was vain for him to answer and aver 
 (truly) that he knew nothing of them, had no con- 
 cern with them. He was seized by the people, and 
 despite his own desperate protestations, despite his 
 wife's shriekings and his children's cries, he was 
 hanged on the spot. The case even in those days 
 was thought piteous, and a perpetual gift of the 
 little farm was made to the poor widow as some 
 compensation. Her children and children's children 
 continued to possess it till their title was questioned 
 by the Duke (of Queensberry), and they (perhaps 
 in my great-grandfather's time, about 1720) were 
 ousted. Date and circumstances for the tale are 
 all wanting. This is my remotest outlook into the 
 
 D 2
 
 36 James Carh/lc. 
 
 past, and itself but a cloudy half or whole hallucina- 
 tion ; farther on there is not even a hallucination. 
 I now return. These things are secular and unsatis- 
 factory. 
 
 Bred up in such circumstances, the boys were 
 accustomed to all manner of hardship, and must 
 trust for upbringing to nature, to the scanty precepts 
 of their poor mother, and to what seeds or influences 
 of culture were hanging as it were in the atmosphere 
 of their environment. Poor boys ! they had to 
 scramble, scraffle, for their very clothes and food. 
 They knit, they thatched for hire, above all they 
 hunted. My father had tried all these things 
 almost in boyhood. Every dell and burngate and 
 cleugh of that district he had traversed, seeking 
 hares and the like. He used to tell of these 
 pilgrimages. Once I remember his gun-flint was 
 tied on with a hatband. He was a real hunter, 
 like a wild Indian, from necessity. The hares' flesh 
 was food. Hare-skins (at some sixpence each) 
 would accumulate into the purchase money of a coat. 
 All these things he used to speak of without either 
 boasting or complaining, not as reproaches to us, but 
 as historical merely. On the whole, he never com- 
 plained either of the past, the present, or the future. 
 He observed and accurately noted all : he made the
 
 James Carlyte. 37 
 
 most and the best of all. His hunting years were 
 not useless to him. Misery was early training the 
 rugged boy into a stoic, that one day he might be 
 the assurance of a Scottish man. 
 
 One Macleod, Sandy Macleod, a wandering pen- 
 sioner invalided out of some Highland regiment 
 (who had served in America, I must think with 
 General Wolfe), had strayed to Brownknowe with 
 his old wife and taken a cottage of my grandfather. 
 He with his wild foreign legends and strange half- 
 idiotic, half-genial ways, was a great figure with the 
 young ones, and I think acted not a little on their 
 character, least of any, however, on my father, whose 
 early turn for the practical and real made him more 
 heedless of Macleod and his vagaries. The old pen- 
 sioner had quaint sayings not without significance. 
 Of a lacrymose complaining man, for example, he 
 said (or perhaps to him), ' he might be thankful he 
 was not in purgatory.' 
 
 The quaint fashion of speaking, assumed for 
 humour, and most noticeable in my uncle Frank, 
 least or hardly at all in my father, was no doubt 
 partly derived from this old wanderer, who was much 
 about their house, working for his rent and so forth, 
 and was partly laughed at, partly wondered at, by 
 the young ones. Tinkers also, nestling in outhouses,
 
 38 James Carlyle. 
 
 making pot metal, and with rude feuds and warfare, 
 often came upon the scene. These, with passing 
 Highland drovers, were perhaps their only visitors. 
 Had there not been a natural goodness and inde- 
 structible force in my father, I see not how he could 
 have bodied himself forth from these mean impedi- 
 ments. I suppose good precepts were not wanting. 
 There was the Bible to read. Old John Orr, the 
 schoolmaster, used from time to time to lodge with 
 them ; he was religious and enthusiastic (though in 
 practice irregular with drink). In my grandfather 
 also there seems to have been a certain geniality ; 
 for instance, he and a neighbour, Thomas Hogg, 
 read * Anson's Voyages,' also the ' Arabian Nights,' 
 for which latter my father, armed with zealous con- 
 viction, scrupled not to censure them openly. By 
 one means or another, at an early age he had acquired 
 principles, lights that not only flickered but shone 
 steadily to guide his way. 
 
 It must have been in his teens, perhaps rather 
 early, that he and his elder brother John, with 
 William Bell (afterwards of Wylie Hill, and a noted 
 drover), and his brother, all met in the kiln at 
 Eelief to play cards. The corn was dried then at 
 home. There was a fire, therefore, and perhaps it 
 was both heat and light. The boys had played, per-
 
 James Carlyle. 39 
 
 baps, often enough for trifling stakes, and always 
 parted in good humour. One night they came to 
 some disagreement. My father spoke out what was 
 ia him about the folly, the sinfulness, of quarrelling 
 over a perhaps sinful amusement. The earnest 
 mind persuaded other minds. They threw the cards 
 in the fire, and (I think the younger Bell told my 
 brother James), no one of the four ever touched 
 a card again through life. My father certainly 
 never hinted at such a game since I knew him. I 
 cannot remember that I, at that age, had any such 
 force of belief. Which of us can ? 
 
 [Friday night. My father is now in his grave, 
 sleeping by the side of his loved ones, his face to 
 the east, under the hope of meeting the Lord when 
 He shall come to judgment, when the times shall 
 be fulfilled. Mysterious life ! Yes, there is a God 
 in man. Silence ! since thou hast no voice. To imi- 
 tate him, I will pause here for the night. God 
 comfort my brother. God guard them all.] 
 
 Of old John Orr I must say another word. My 
 father, who often spoke of him, though not so much 
 latterly, gave me copious description of that and 
 other antiquarian matters in one of the pleasantest 
 days I remember, the last time but one (or perhaps 
 two) that we talked together. A tradition of poor
 
 4O James Carlyle 
 
 old Orr, as of a man of boundless love and natural 
 worth, still faintly lives in Annandale. If I mis- 
 take not, he worked also as a shoemaker. He was 
 heartily devout, yet subject to fits of irregularity. 
 He would vanish for weeks into obscure tippling- 
 houses ; then reappear ghastly and haggard in body 
 and mind, shattered in health, torn with gnawing 
 remorse. Perhaps it was in some dark interval of 
 this kind (he was already old) that he bethought 
 him of his father, and how he was still lying with- 
 out a stone of memorial. John had already ordered 
 a tombstone for him, and it was lying worked, and, 
 I suppose, lettered and ready, at some mason's 
 establishment (up the water of Mein), but never 
 yet carried to the place. Probably Orr had not a 
 shilling of money to hire any carter with, but he 
 hurried off to the spot, and desperately got the 
 stone on his back. It was a load that had nigh 
 killed him. He had to set it down ever and anon 
 and rest, and get it up again. The night fell. I 
 think some one found him desperately struggling 
 with it near Main Hill, and assisted him, and got it 
 set in its place. 
 
 Though far above all quackery, Orr was actually 
 employed to exorcise a house ; some house or room 
 at Orchard, in the parish of Hoddam. He entered
 
 James Carlyle. 41 
 
 the haunted place; was closeted in it for some 
 time, speaking and praying. The ghost was really 
 and truly laid, for no one heard more of it. Beauti- 
 ful reverence, even of the rude and ignorant, for the 
 infinite nature of wisdom in the infinite life of man. 
 
 Orr, as already said, used to come much about 
 Brownknowe, being habitually itinerant ; and 
 (though schoolmaster of Hoddam) without settled 
 home. He commonly, my father said, slept with 
 some of the boys ; in a place where, as usual, there 
 were several beds. He would call out from the bed 
 to my grandfather, also in his, * Ghideman, I have 
 found it ; ' found the solution of some problem or 
 other, perhaps arithmetical, which they had been 
 struggling with ; or, ' Gudeman, what d'ye think of 
 this ? ' 
 
 I represent him to myself as a squat, pursy 
 kind of figure, grim, dusky ; the blandest and most 
 bounteous of cynics. Also a form of the past. He 
 was my father's sole teacher in schooling. 
 
 It might be in the year, I think, 1773, that one 
 William Brown, a mason from Peebles, came down 
 into Annandale to do some work ; perhaps boarded 
 in my grandfather's house ; at all events married 
 his eldest daughter's child, my now old and vehe- 
 ment, then young and spirited, Aunt Fanny. This
 
 42 James Carlyle. 
 
 worthy man, whose nephew is still minister of Esk- 
 dalemuir (and author of a book on the Jews), 
 proved the greatest blessing to that household. My 
 father would, in any case, have saved himself. Of 
 the other brothers, it may be doubted whether 
 William Brown was not the primary preserver. 
 They all learned to be masons from him, or from 
 one another ; instead of miscellaneous labourers and 
 hunters, became regular tradesmen, the best in all 
 their district, the skilfullest and faithfullest, and 
 the best rewarded every way. Except my father, 
 none of them attained a decisive religiousness. But 
 they all had prudence and earnestness, love of truth, 
 industry, and the blessings it brings. My father, 
 before my time, though not the eldest, had become, 
 in all senses, the head of the house. The eldest 
 was called John. He early got asthma, and for long 
 could not work, though he got his share of the 
 wages still. I can faintly remember him as a pallid, 
 sickly figure; and even one or two insignificant 
 words, and the breathless tone he uttered them in. 
 When seized with extreme fits of sickness he used 
 to gasp out, * Bring Jamie ; do send for Jamie.' He 
 died, I think, in 1802. I remember the funeral, 
 and perhaps a day before it, how an ill-behaving 
 servant wench lifted up the coverlid from off his
 
 James Carlylc. 43 
 
 pale, ghastly, befilleted head to show it to some 
 crony of hers ; unheeding of me, who was alone 
 with them, and to whom the sight gave a new pang 
 of horror. He was the father of two sons and a 
 daughter, beside whom our boyhood was passed, 
 none of whom have come to anything but insignifi- 
 cance. He was a well-doing man, and left them 
 well ; but their mother was not wise, nor they 
 decidedly so. The youngest brother my uncle 
 Tom died next ; a fiery, passionate, self-secluded, 
 warm, loving, genuine soul, without fear and with- 
 out guile : of whom it is recorded, he never from 
 the first tones of speech, * told any lies.' A true old- 
 Eoman soul, yet so marred and stunted, who well 
 deserves a chapter to himself, especially from me, 
 who so lovingly admired him. He departed in my 
 father's house, in my presence, in the year 1815, 
 the first death I had ever understood and laid with 
 its whole emphasis to heart. Frank followed next, 
 at an interval of some five years ; a quaint, social, 
 cheerful man, of less earnestness but more open- 
 ness, fond of genealogies, old historic poems, queer 
 sayings, and all curious and humane things he 
 could come at. 
 
 This made him the greatest favourite. The 
 rest were rather feared ; my father, ultimately at
 
 44 James Carlyle. 
 
 least, universally feared and respected. Frank left 
 two sons, as yet young ; one of whom, my name- 
 sake, gone to be a lawyer, is rather clever, how 
 clever I have not fully seen. All these brothers 
 were men of evidently rather peculiar endowment. 
 They were (consciously) noted for their brotherly 
 affection and coherence, for their hard sayings and 
 hard strikings, which only my father ever grew 
 heartily to detest. All of them became prosperous ; 
 got a name and possessions in their degree. It was 
 a kindred warmly liked, I believe, by those near it ; 
 by those at a distance, viewed at worst and Ipwesty 
 as something dangerous to meddle with, something 
 not to be meddled with. 
 
 What are the rich or the poor ? and how do the 
 simple annals of the poor differ from the complex 
 annals of the rich, were they never so rich ? What 
 is thy attainment compared with an Alexander's, 
 a Mahomet's, a Napoleon's ? And what was theirs ? 
 A temporary fraction of this planetkin, the whole 
 round of which is but a sandgrain in the all, its 
 whole duration but a moment in eternity. The 
 poorer life or the rich one are but the larger or 
 smaller (very little smaller) letters in which we 
 write the apophthegms and golden sayings of life. 
 It may be a false saying or it may be a true one.
 
 James Carlyle. 45 
 
 There lies it all. This is of quite infinite moment ; 
 the rest is, verily and indeed, of next to none. 
 
 Perhaps my father was William Brown's first 
 apprentice. Somewhere about his sixteenth year, 
 early in the course of the engagement, work grew 
 scarce in Annandale. The two ' slung their tools ' 
 (mallets and irons hung in two equipoised masses 
 over the shoulder), and crossed the hills into Niths- 
 dale to Auldgarth, where a bridge was building. 
 This was my father's most foreign adventure. He 
 never again, or before, saw anything so new; or, 
 -except when he came to Craigenputtoch on visits, so 
 distant. He loved to speak of it. That talking day 
 we had together I made him tell it me all over 
 again from the beginning, as a whole, for the first 
 time. He was a ' hewer,' and had some few pence 
 a day. He could describe with the lucidest dis- 
 tinctness how the whole work went on, and ' headers' 
 and ' closers,' solidly massed together, made an im- 
 pregnable pile. He used to hear sermons in Close- 
 burn church; sometimes too in Dunscore. The 
 men had a refreshment of ale, for which he too used 
 to table his twopence, but the grown-up men gene- 
 rally, for the most part, refused them. A superin- 
 tendent of the work, a mason from Edinburgh, who 
 did nothing but look on, and, rather decidedly,
 
 46 James Carlyle. 
 
 insist on terms of contract, ' took a great notion ' of 
 him ; was for having him to Edinburgh along with 
 him. The master builder, pleased with his inge- 
 nious diligence, once laid a shilling on his ' banker ' 
 (stone bench for hewing on), which he rather un- 
 graciously refused. A flood once carried off all 
 the centres and woodwork. He saw the master 
 anxiously, tremulously, watch through the rain as 
 the waters rose. When they prevailed, and all went 
 headlong, the poor man, wringing his hands to- 
 gether, spread them out with open palms down the 
 river, as if to say, ' There ! ' 
 
 It was a noble moment, which I regret to have 
 missed, when my father going to look at Craigen- 
 puttoch saw this work for the first time again after a 
 space of more than fifty years. How changed was all 
 else, this thing yet the same. Then he was a poor 
 boy, now he was a respected old man, increased in 
 worldly goods, honoured in himself and in his house- 
 hold. He grew alert (Jamie said) and eagerly obser- 
 vant, eagerly yet with sadness. Our country was all 
 altered ; browsing knowes were become seed-fields ; 
 trees, then not so much as seeds, now waved out 
 broad boughs. The houses, the fields, the men were 
 of another fashion. There was little that he could 
 recognise. On reaching the bridge itself he started
 
 James Carlyle. 47 
 
 up to his knees in the cart, sat wholly silent and 
 seemed on the point of weeping. 
 
 Well do I remember the first time I saw this 
 bridge twelve years ago in the dusk of a May day. 
 I had walked from Muirkirk, sickly, forlorn, of 
 saddest mood (for it was then my days of darkness). 
 A rustic answered me, 'Auldgarth.' There it lay, 
 silent, red in the red dusk. It was as if half a century 
 of past time had fatefully for moments turned back. 
 
 The master builder of this bridge was one 
 Stewart of Minniyve, who afterwards became my 
 uncle John Aitken's father-in-law. Him I once saw. 
 My Craigenputtoch mason, James Hainning's father, 
 was the smith that * sharpened the tools.' A noble 
 craft it is, that of a mason ; a good building will last 
 longer than most books, than one book of a million. 
 The Auldgarth bridge still spans the water silently, 
 defies its chafing. There hangs it and will hang 
 grim and strong, when of all the cunning hands that 
 piled it together, perhaps the last now is powerless 
 in the sleep of death. Time ! Time ! won- 
 drous and fearful art thou, yet there is in man 
 what is above thee. 
 
 Of my father's youth and opening manhood, and 
 with what specialities this period was marked, I have 
 but an imperfect notion. He was now master of his
 
 48 James Carlyle. 
 
 own actions, possessed of means by his own earning, 
 and had to try the world on various sides, and ascer- 
 tain wherein his own ' chief end ' in it actually lay. 
 The first impulse of man is to seek for enjoyment. 
 He lives with more or less impetuosity, more or less 
 irregularity, to conquer for himself a home and 
 blessedness of a mere earthly kind. Not till later 
 (in how many cases never) does he ascertain that on 
 earth there is no such home : that his true home 
 lies beyond the world of sense, is a celestial home. 
 Of these experimenting and tentative days my 
 father did not speak with much pleasure ; not at all 
 with exultation. He considered them days of folly, 
 perhaps sinful days. Yet I well know that his life 
 even then was marked by temperance (in all senses), 
 that he was abstemious, prudent, industrious as very 
 few. 
 
 I have a dim picture of him in his little world. 
 In summer season diligently, cheerfully labouring 
 with trowel and hammer, amused by grave talk and 
 grave humour with the doers of the craft. Building, 
 walling, is an operation that beyond most other 
 manual ones requires incessant consideration even 
 new invention. I have heard good judges say that 
 he excelled in it all persons they had seen. In the 
 depth of winter I figure him with the others gathered
 
 James Carlyle. 49 
 
 round his father's hearth (now no longer so poor and 
 desolate), hunting, (but now happily for amusement, 
 not necessity), present here and there at some merry 
 meetings and social doings, as poor Annandale, for 
 poor yet God-created men, might then offer. Con- 
 tentions occur. In these he was no man to be 
 played with : fearless, formidable (I think to all). 
 
 In after times he looked back with sorrow on 
 such things yet to me they were not and are not 
 other than interesting and innocent scarcely ever, 
 perhaps never, to be considered as aggressions, but 
 always as defences, manful assertions of man's rights 
 against men that would infringe them and victorious 
 ones. I can faintly picture out one scene which I 
 got from him many years ago; perhaps it was at 
 some singing school ; a huge rude peasant was 
 rudely insulting and defying the party my father 
 belonged to, and the others quailed and bore it till 
 he could bear it no longer, but clutches his rough 
 adversary (who had been standing, I think, at some 
 distance on some sort of height) by the two flanks, 
 swings him with ireful force round in the air, hit- 
 ting his feet against some open door, and hurled him 
 to a distance, supine, lamed, vanquished, and utterly 
 humbled. The whole business looks to me to have 
 passed physically in a troublous moonlight. 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 James Carlylc. 
 
 In the same environment and hue does it now 
 stand in my memory, sad and stern. He could say 
 of such things * I am wae to think on't : ' wae from 
 repentance. Happy he who has nothing worse to 
 repent of. 
 
 In the vanities and gallantries of life (though 
 such as these would come across him), he seems to 
 have very sparingly mingled. One Eobert Hender- 
 son, a dashing projector and devotee, with a dashing 
 daughter, came often up in conversation. This was 
 perhaps (as it were) my father's introduction to the 
 ' pride of life : ' from which, as his wont was, he 
 appears to have derived little but instruction, but 
 expansion and experience. I have good reason to 
 know he never addressed any woman except with 
 views that were pure and manly. But happily he 
 had been enabled very soon in this choice of the false 
 and present against the true and future, to ' choose 
 the better part.' Happily there still existed in 
 Annandale an influence of goodness, pure emblems of 
 a religion. There were yet men living from whom 
 a youth of earnestness might learn by example how 
 to become a man. Old Robert Brand, my father's 
 maternal uncle, was probably of very great influence 
 on him in this respect. Old Eobert was a rigorous 
 religionist, thoroughly filled with a celestial philo-
 
 James Carlyle. 51 
 
 sophy of this earthly life, which showed impressively 
 through his stout decision and somewhat cross-grained 
 deeds and words. Sharp sayings of his are still re- 
 collected there, not unworthy of preserving. He was 
 a man of iron firmness, a just man and of wise in- 
 sight. I think my father, consciously and unconsci- 
 ously, may have learnt more from him than from any 
 other individual. From the time when he connected 
 himself openly with the religious, became a Burgher 
 (strict, not strictest species of Presbyterian Dis- 
 senter) may be dated his spiritual majority ; his 
 earthly life was now enlightened and overcanopied 
 by a heavenly. He was henceforth a man. 
 
 Annandale had long been a lawless Border 
 country. The people had ceased from foray riding, 
 but not from its effects. The ' gallant man ' of those 
 districts was still a wild, natural, almost animal man. 
 A select few had only of late united themselves. 
 They had built a little meeting-house at Ecclefechan, 
 thatched with heath, and chosen them a priest, by 
 name John Johnston, the priestliest man I ever 
 under any ecclesiastical guise was privileged to look 
 upon. He in his last years helped me well with 
 my Latin (as he had done many) and otherwise 
 produced me far higher benefit. This peasant union, 
 this little heath-thatched house, this simple evan- 
 
 B 2
 
 52 James Carlyle. 
 
 gelist, together constituted properly the church of 
 that district. They were the blessing and the 
 saving of many. On me too their pious heaven-sent 
 influences still rest and live. Let me employ them 
 well. There was in those days a 'teacher of the 
 people.' He sleeps not far from my father (who 
 built his monument) in the Ecclefechan churchyard ; 
 the teacher and the taught. ' Blessed,' I again say, 
 ' are the dead that die in the Lord. They do rest 
 from their labours ; their works follow them.' 
 
 My father, I think, was of the second race of 
 religious men in Annandale. Old Robert Brand an 
 ancient herdsman, old John Britton, and some others 
 that I have seen, were perhaps among the first. 
 There is no third rising. Time sweeps all away 
 with it so fast at this epoch. The Scottish Church 
 has been shortlived, and was late in reaching thither. 
 
 Perhaps it was in 1791 that my father married 
 one Janet Carlyle, a very distant kinswoman of his 
 own (her father yet, I believe, lives, a professor of 
 religion, but long time suspected to be none of the 
 most perfect, though not without his worth). She 
 brought him one son, John, at present a well-doing 
 householder at Cockermouth. She left him and this 
 little life in little more than a year. A mass of long 
 fair woman's hair which had belonged to her lay
 
 James Carlyle. 53 
 
 long in a secret drawer at our house (perhaps still 
 lies) ; the sight of it used to give me a certain faint 
 horror. It had been cut from her head near death, 
 when she was in the height of fever. She was 
 delirious, and would let none but my father cut it. 
 He thought himself sure of infection, nevertheless 
 consented readily, and escaped. Many ways I have 
 understood he had much to suffer then, yet he never 
 spoke of it, or only transiently, and with a historical 
 stoicism. Let me here mention the reverent custom 
 the old men had in Annandale of treating death even 
 in their loosest thoughts. It is now passing away ; 
 with my father it was quite invariable. Had he 
 occasion to speak in the future, he would say I will 
 do so and so, never failing to add (were it only 
 against the morrow) ' if I be spared,' ' if I live.' 
 The dead again he spoke of with perfect freedom, 
 only with serious gravity (perhaps a lowering of the 
 voice) and always, even in the most trivial conver- 
 sation, adding, ' that's gane ; ' ( my brother John that's 
 gane ' did so and so. Ernst ist das Leben. 
 
 He married again, in the beginning of 1795, my 
 mother, Margaret Aitken (a woman of to me the 
 fairest descent that of the pious, the just and wise.) 
 She was a faithful helpmate to him, toiling un- 
 weariedly at his side ; to us the best of all mothers ;
 
 54 James Carlyle 
 
 to whom, for body and soul, I owe endless gratitude. 
 By God's great mercy she is still left as a head and 
 centre to us all, and may yet cheer us with her 
 pious heroism through many toils, if God so please. 
 I am the eldest child, born in 1795, December 4, 
 and trace deeply in myself the character of both 
 parents, also the upbringing and example of both ; 
 the inheritance of their natural health, had not I and 
 the time beat on it too hard. 
 
 It must have been about the period of the first 
 marriage that my father and his brothers, already 
 master masons, established themselves in Ecclefechan. 
 They all henceforth began to take on a civil 
 existence, to ( accumulate ' in all senses, to grow. 
 They were among the best and truest men of their 
 craft (perhaps the very best) in that whole district, 
 and recompensed accordingly. Their gains were the 
 honest wages of industry, their savings were slow 
 but constant, and in my father's, continued (from 
 one source or other) to the end. He was born and 
 brought up the poorest ; by his own right hand he 
 had become wealthy, as he accounted wealth, and 
 in all ways plentifully supplied. His household 
 goods valued in money may perhaps somewhat 
 exceed 1,000?. In real inward worth that value 
 was greater than that of most kingdoms, than all
 
 James Carlyle. 55 
 
 Napoleon's conquests, which did not endure. He 
 saw his children grow up round him to guard him 
 and to do him honour. He had, ultimately, a 
 hearty respect from all ; could look forward from his 
 verge of this earth, rich and increased in goods, into 
 an everlasting country, where through the immea- 
 surable deeps, shone a solemn, sober hope. I must 
 reckon my father one of the most prosperous men I 
 have ever in my life known. 
 
 Frugality and assiduity, a certain grave com- 
 posure, an earnestness (not without its constraint, 
 then felt as oppressive a little, yet which now 
 yields its fruit) were the order of our household. 
 We were all particularly taught that work (temporal 
 or Spiritual) was the only thing we had to do, and 
 incited always by precept and example to do it well. 
 An inflexible element of authority surrounded us all. 
 We felt from the first (a useful thing), that our 
 own wish had often nothing to say in the matter. 
 
 It was not a joyful life (what life is ?), yet a safe, 
 quiet one ; above most others (or any other I have 
 witnessed) a wholesome one. We were taciturn rather 
 than talkative. But if little was said, that little 
 had generally a meaning. I cannot be thankful 
 enough for my parents. My early, yet not my 
 earliest recollections of my father have in them a
 
 56 James Carlyle. 
 
 certain awe which only now or very lately has passed 
 into free reverence. I was parted from him in my 
 tenth year, and never habitually lived with him 
 afterwards. Of the very earliest I have saved some, 
 and would not for money's worth lose them. All 
 that belongs to him has become very precious to me. 
 I can remember his carrying me across Mein 
 Water, over a pool some few yards below where the 
 present Meinfoot bridge stands. Perhaps I was in 
 my fifth year. He was going to Luce, I think, to 
 ask after some joiner. It was the loveliest summer 
 evening I recollect. My memory dawns (or grows 
 light) at the first aspect of the stream ; of the pool 
 spanned by a wooden bow without railing, and a 
 single plank broad. He lifted me against his thigh 
 with his right hand, and walked careless along till 
 we were over. My face was turned rather downwards. 
 I looked into the deep clear water and its reflected 
 skies with terror, yet with confidence that he could 
 save me. Directly after, I, light of heart, asked of 
 him what those little black things were that I 
 sometimes seemed to create by rubbing the palms of 
 my hands together ; and can at this moment (the 
 mind having been doubtless excited by the past 
 peril) remember that I described them in these 
 words, ' little penny rows ' (rolls) ' but far less.' He
 
 James Carlyle. 57 
 
 explained it wholly to me ; * my hands were not 
 clean.' He was very kind, and I loved him. All 
 around this is dusk or night before and after. It is 
 not my earliest recollection, not even of him. My 
 earliest of all is a mad passion of rage at my elder 
 brother John (on a visit to us likely from his grand- 
 father) in which my father too figures, though dimly, 
 as a kind of cheerful comforter and soother. I had 
 broken my little brown stool, by madly throwing it 
 at my brother, and felt, for perhaps the first time, the 
 united pangs of loss and of remorse. I was perhaps 
 hardly more than two years old, but can get no one 
 to fix the date for me, though all is still quite 
 legible for myself with many of its features. I re- 
 member the first ' new half-pence ' (brought from 
 Dumfries by my father and mother for Alick and 
 me), and words that my uncle John said about it, in 
 1799! Backwards beyond all, dim ruddy images 
 of deeper and deeper brown shade into the dark 
 beginnings of being. 
 
 I remember, perhaps in my fifth year, his teaching 
 me arithmetical things, especially how to divide (my 
 letters, taught me by my mother, I have no recollec- 
 tion of whatever ; of reading scarcely any). He said, 
 This is the divider (divisor) ; this etc. ; and gave me 
 a quite clear notion how to do it. My mother said I
 
 58 James Carlyle 
 
 would forget it all ; to which he answered, ' Not so 
 much as they that have never learnt it.' Five years 
 or so after he said to me once, ' Tom, I do not grudge 
 thy schooling now, when thy uncle Frank owns thee 
 to be a better arithmetician than himself.' 
 
 He took me down to Annan Academy on the 
 Whitsunday morning, 1806; I trotting at his side 
 in the way alluded to in Teufelsdrockh. It was a 
 bright morning, and to me full of movement, of 
 fluttering boundless hopes, saddened by parting with 
 mother, with home, and which afterwards were 
 cruelly disappointed. He called once or twice in the 
 grand schoolroom, as he chanced to have business 
 at Annan ; once sat down by me (as the master was 
 out) and asked whether I was all well. The boys 
 did not laugh as I feared ; perhaps durst not. 
 
 He was always generous to me in my school ex- 
 penses ; never by grudging look or word did he give 
 me any pain. With a noble faith he launched me 
 forth into a world which himself had never been per- 
 mitted to visit. Let me study to act worthily of 
 him there. 
 
 He wrote to me duty and affectionately while I 
 was at college. Nothing that was good for me did 
 he fail with his best ability to provide. His simple, 
 true counsel and fatherly admonitions have now first
 
 James Carlyle. 59 
 
 attained their fit sacredness of meaning. Pity for 
 me if they be thrown away. 
 
 His tolerance for me, his trust in me, was great. 
 When I declined going forward into the Church 
 (though his heart was set upon it), he respected my 
 scruples, my volition, and patiently let me have my 
 way. In after years, when I had peremptorily ceased 
 from being a schoolmaster, though he inwardly dis- 
 approved of the step as imprudent, and saw me in 
 successive summers lingering beside him in sick- 
 liness of body and mind, without outlook towards 
 any good, he had the forbearance to say at worst 
 nothing, never once to whisper discontent with me. 
 
 If my dear mother, with the trustfulness of a 
 mother's heart, ministered to all my woes, outward 
 and inward, and even against hope kept prophesying 
 good, he, with whom I communicated far less, who 
 could not approve my schemes, did nothing that 
 was not kind and fatherly. His roof was my shel- 
 ter, which a word from him (in those sour days of 
 wounded vanity) would have deprived me of. He 
 patiently let me have my way, helping when he 
 could, when he could not help never hindering. 
 When hope again dawned for me, how hearty was 
 his joy, yet how silent. I have been a happy son. 
 
 On my first return from college (in the spring,
 
 60 James Carlyle. 
 
 1810), I met him in the Langlands road, walking 
 out to try whether he would not happen to see me 
 coming. He had a red plaid about him; was 
 recovering from a fit of sickness (his first severe one) 
 and there welcomed me back. It was a bright 
 April day. Where is it now ? 
 
 The great world-revolutions send in their dis- 
 turbing billows to the remotest creek, and the over- 
 throw of thrones more slowly overturns also the 
 households of the lowly. Nevertheless in all cases 
 the wise man adjusts himself. Even in these times 
 the hand of the diligent maketh rich. My father 
 had seen the American War, the French Kevolution, 
 the rise and fall of Napoleon. The last arrested him 
 strongly. In the Russian Campaign he bought a 
 London newspaper, which I read aloud to a little 
 circle twice weekly. He was struck with Napoleon, 
 and would say and look pregnant things about him. 
 Empires won and empires lost (while his little 
 household held together) and now it was all vanished 
 like a tavern brawl. For the rest he never meddled 
 with politics. He was not there to govern, but to 
 be governed ; could still live and therefore did not 
 revolt. I have heard him say in late years with an 
 impressiveness which all his perceptions carried with 
 them, that the lot of a poor man was growing worse
 
 James Carlyle. 61 
 
 and worse ; that the world would not and could not 
 last as it was ; that mighty changes of which none 
 saw the end were on the way. To him, as one about 
 to take his departure, the whole was but of secondary 
 moment. He was looking towards ' a city that had 
 foundations.' 
 
 In the dear years (1799 and 1800) when the 
 oatmeal was as high as ten shillings a stone, he 
 had noticed the labourers (I have heard him tell) 
 retire each separately to a brook, and there drink 
 instead of dining, without complaint, anxious only to 
 hide it. 
 
 At Langholm he once saw a heap of smuggled 
 tobacco publicly burnt Dragoons were ranged 
 round it with drawn swords; some old women 
 stretched through their old withered arms to snatch 
 a little of it, and the dragoons did not hinder them. 
 A natural artist ! 
 
 The largest sum he ever earned in one year was, 
 / think, 100L by the building of Cressfield House. 
 He wisely quitted the mason trade at the time 
 when the character of it had changed, when univer- 
 sal poverty and vanity made show and cheapness (here 
 as everywhere) be preferred to substance ; when, as 
 he said emphatically, honest trade ' was done.' He 
 became fanner (of a wet clayey spot called Mainhill)
 
 62 Jamex Ciuiylc, 
 
 in 1815, that so ' he might keep all his family about 
 him,' struggled with his old valour, and here too 
 prevailed. 
 
 Two ears of corn are now in many places grow- 
 ing where he found only one. Unworthy or little 
 worthy men for the time reap the benefit, but it 
 was a benefit done to God's earth, and God's mankind 
 will year after year get the good of it. 
 
 In his contention with an unjust or perhaps 
 only a mistaken landlord, he behaved with prudent 
 resolution, not like a vain braggart but like a practi- 
 cally brave man. It was I that innocently (by my 
 settlement at Hoddam Hill) had involved him in it. 
 I must admire now his silence, while we were all so 
 loud and vituperative. He spoke nothing in that 
 matter except only what had practical meaning in it, 
 and in a practical tone. His answers to unjust pro- 
 posals meanwhile were resolute as ever, memorable 
 for their emphasis. ' I will not do it,' said he once ; 
 
 * I will rather go to Jerusalem seeking farms and die 
 without finding one.' * We can live without Sharpe,' 
 said he once in my hearing (such a thing, only once) 
 
 * and the whole Sharpe creation.' On getting to 
 Scotsbrig, the rest of us all triumphed not he. He 
 let the matter stand on its own feet; was there 
 also not to talk, but to work. He even addressed a
 
 James Carlylc. 63 
 
 conciliatory letter to General Sharpe (which I saw 
 right to write for him, since he judged prudence 
 better than pride), but it produced no result except 
 indeed the ascertainment that none could be pro- 
 duced which itself was one. 
 
 When he first entered our house at Craigenput- 
 toch, he said in his slow emphatic way, with a cer- 
 tain rustic dignity to my wife (I had entered with- 
 out introducing him), ' I am grown an old fellow 
 (never can we forget the pathetic slow earnestness 
 of these two words) ; * I am grown an old fellow, 
 and wished to see ye all once more while I had 
 opportunity.' Jane 1 was greatly struck with him, 
 and still farther opened my eyes to the treasure I 
 possessed in a father. 
 
 The last thing I gave him was a cake of Caven- 
 dish tobacco sent down by Alick about this 
 time twelvemonth. Through life I had given him 
 very little, having little to give. He needed little, 
 and from me expected nothing. Thou who wouldst 
 give, give quickly. In the grave thy loved one can 
 receive no kindness. I once bought him a pair of 
 silver spectacles, of the receipt of which and the 
 letter that accompanied them (John told me) he 
 was very glad, and nigh weeping. ' What I gave I 
 1 Miss Jane Welsh, whom Carlyle married.
 
 64 James Carlyle. 
 
 have.' He read with these spectacles till his last 
 days, and no doubt sometimes thought of me in 
 using them. 
 
 The last time I saw him was about the first of 
 August last, a few days before departing hither. He 
 was very kind, seemed prouder of me than ever. 
 What he had never done the like of before, he said, 
 on hearing me express something which he admired, 
 * Man, it's surely a pity that thou shouldst sit yonder 
 with nothing but the eye of Omniscience to see 
 thee, and thou with such a gift to speak.' His eyes 
 were sparkling mildly, with a kind of deliberate joy. 
 Strangely too he offered me on one of those mornings 
 (knowing that I was poor) 'two sovereigns' which 
 he had of his own, and pressed them on my accept- 
 ance. They were lying in his desk ; none knew 
 of them. He seemed really anxious and desirous 
 that I should take them, should take his little hoard, 
 his all that he had to give. I said jokingly after- 
 wards that surely he was FEY. So it has proved. 
 
 I shall now no more behold my dear father with 
 these bodily eyes. With him a whole threescore and 
 ten years of the past has doubly died for me. It is 
 as if a new leaf in the great book of time were 
 turned over. Strange time endless time; or of 
 which I see neither end nor beginning. All rushes
 
 James Carlyle. 65 
 
 on. Man follows man. His life is as a tale that has 
 been told ; yet under Time does there not lie Eter- 
 nity ? Perhaps my father, all that essentially was 
 my father, is even now near me, with me. Both he 
 and I are with God. Perhaps, if it so please God, we 
 shall in some higher state of being meet one another, 
 recognise one another. As it is written, We shall be 
 for ever with Grod. The possibility, nay (in some 
 way) the certainty of perennial existence daily grows 
 plainer to me. ' The essence of whatever was, is, or 
 shall be, even now is.' God is great. God is good. 
 His will be done, for it will be right. 
 
 As it is, I can think peaceably of the departed 
 loved. All that was earthly, harsh, sinful in our 
 relation has fallen away ; all that was holy in it re- 
 mains. I can see my dear father's life in some 
 measure as the sunk pillar on which mine was to 
 rise and be built ; the waters of time have now 
 swelled up round his (as they will round mine) ; I 
 can see it all transfigured, though I touch it no 
 longer. I might almost say his spirit seems to have 
 entered into me (so clearly do I discern and love 
 him) ; I seem to myself only the continuation and 
 second volume of my father. These days that I 
 have spent thinking of him and of his end, are the 
 peaceablest, the only Sabbath that I have had in 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 James Carlyle. 
 
 London. One other of the universal destinies of man 
 has overtaken me. Thank Heaven, I know and have 
 known what it is to be a son ; to love a father, as 
 spirit can love spirit. God give me to live to my 
 father's honour and to His. And now, beloved father, 
 farewell for the last time in this world of shadows ! 
 In the world of realities may the Great Father again 
 bring us together in perfect holiness and perfect 
 love ! Amen ! 
 
 Sunday night, Jan. 29, 1832.
 
 EDWARD IRVING. 
 
 F 2
 
 EDWARD IRVING. 
 
 Cheyne Bow, Autumn 18G6. 
 
 EDWARD IRVING died thirty-two years ago (December 
 1834) in the first months of our adventurous settle- 
 ment here. The memory of him is still clear and 
 vivid with me in all points : that of his first and 
 only visit to us in this house, in this room, just 
 before leaving for Glasgow (October 1834), which 
 was the last we saw of him, is still as fresh as if it had 
 been yesterday ; and he has a solemn, massive, sad 
 and even pitiable though not much blamable, or in 
 heart even blamable, and to me always dear and most 
 friendly aspect, in those vacant kingdoms of the past. 
 He was scornfully forgotten at the time of his death, 
 having, indeed, sunk a good while before out of the 
 notice of the more intelligent classes. There has 
 since been and now is, in the new theological gene- 
 ration, a kind of revival of him, on rather weak 
 and questionable terms, sentimental mainly, and 
 grounded on no really correct knowledge or insight. 
 Which, however, seems to bespeak some continuance
 
 70 Edward Irving. 
 
 of by-gone remembrances for a good while yet, by 
 that class of people and the many that hang by them. 
 Being very solitary, and, except for converse with 
 the spirits of my vanished ones, very idle in these 
 hours and days, I have bethought me of throwing 
 down (the more rapidly the better) something of my 
 recollections of this, to me, very memorable man, in 
 hopes they may by possibility be worth something 
 by-and-by to some not worth less than nothing to 
 anybody (viz. not true and candid according to my 
 best thoughts) if I can help it. 
 
 The Irvings, Edward's father and uncles, lived all 
 within a few miles of my native place, and were of 
 my father's acquaintance. Two of the uncles, whose 
 little farm establishments lay close upon Ecclefechan, 
 were of his familiars, and became mine more or less, 
 especially one of them (George, of Bogside), who 
 was further a co-religionist of ours (a * Burgher Se- 
 ceder,' not a ' Kirkman,' as the other was). They 
 were all cheerfully quiet, rational, and honest people, 
 of good-natured and prudent turn. Something of 
 what might be called a kindly vanity, a very harm- 
 less self-esteem, doing pleasure to the proprietor and 
 hurt to nobody else, was traceable in all of them. 
 They were not distinguished by intellect, any of 
 them, except it might be intellect in the unconscious
 
 Edward Irving. 7 1 
 
 or instinctive condition (coming out as prudence of 
 conduct, etc.), of which there were good indications ; 
 and of Uncle George, who was prudent enough, and 
 successfully diligent in his affairs (no bad proof of 
 ' intellect ' in some shape) though otherwise a most 
 taciturn, dull, and almost stupid-looking man, 
 I remember this other fact, that he had one of the 
 largest heads in the district, and that my father, he, 
 and a clever and original Dr. Little, their neighbour, 
 never could be fitted in a hat shop in the village, 
 but had always to send their measure to Dumfries 
 to a hat-maker there. Whether Greorge had a round 
 head or a long, I don't recollect. There was a fine 
 little spice of innocent, faint, but genuine and kindly 
 banter in him now and then. Otherwise I recollect 
 him only as heavy, hebetated, elderly or old, and 
 more inclined to quiescence and silence than to 
 talk of or care about anything exterior to his own 
 interests, temporal or spiritual. 
 
 Gavin, Edward's father (name pronounced Gayin 
 = Guyon, as Edward once remarked to me), a tallish 
 man of rugged countenance, which broke out often- 
 est into some innocent fleer of merriment, or readi- 
 ness to be merry when you addressed him, was a 
 prudent, honest-hearted, rational person, but made 
 no pretension to superior gifts of mind, though he
 
 72 Edward Irving. 
 
 too, perhaps, may have had such in its undeveloped 
 form. Thus, on ending his apprenticeship, or by 
 some other lucky opportunity, he had formed a de- 
 termination of seeing a little of England in the first 
 place, and actually got mounted on a stout pony, 
 accoutrements succinctly complete (road money in a 
 belt round his own body), and rode and wandered at 
 his will deliberate southward, I think, for about six 
 weeks, as far as Wiltshire at least, for I have heard 
 him speak of Devizes, * The Devizes ' he called it, 
 as one of his halting places. What his precise 
 amount of profit from this was I know not at all, 
 but it bespeaks something ingenuous and adven- 
 turous in the young man. He was by craft a tanner, 
 had settled in Annan, soon began to be prosperous, 
 wedded well, and continued all his life there. He 
 was among the younger of these brothers, but was 
 clearly the head of them, and, indeed, had been the 
 making of the principal two, George and John, 
 whom we knew. Gavin was baillie in Annan when 
 the furious election sung by Burns (* There were five 
 carlins in the south' five burghs, namely) took 
 place. Gavin voted the right way (Duke of Queens- 
 berry's way) and got for his two brothers each the 
 lease of a snug Queensberry farm, which grew even 
 the snugger as dissolute old Queensberry developed
 
 Edward Irving. 73 
 
 himself more and more into a cynical egoist, sen- 
 sualist, and hater of his next heir (the Buccleuch, 
 not a Douglas but a Scott, who now holds both duke- 
 doms) a story well known over Scotland, and of 
 altogether lively interest in Annandale (where it 
 meant entail-leases and large sums of money) during 
 several years of my youth. 
 
 These people, the Queensberry farmers, seem to 
 me to have been the happiest set of yeomen I ever 
 came to see, not only because they sate easy as to 
 rent, but because they knew fully how to sit so, 
 and were pious, modest, thrifty men, who neither 
 fell into laggard relaxation of diligence or were 
 stung by any madness of ambition, but faithfully 
 continued to turn all their bits of worldly success 
 into real profit for soul and body. They disappeared 
 (in Chancery lawsuit) fifty years ago. I have seen 
 various kinds of farmers, scientific etc. etc., but as 
 desirable a set not since. 
 
 Gavin had married well, perhaps rather above 
 his rank, a tall, black-eyed, handsome woman, sister 
 of certain Lowthers in that neighbourhood, who did 
 most of the inconsiderable corn trade of those parts, 
 and were considered a stiff-necked, faithful kind of 
 people, apter to do than to speak, originally from 
 Cumberland, I believe. For her own share the
 
 74 Edward Irving. 
 
 mother of Edward Irving had much of fluent speech 
 in her, and of management; thrifty, assiduous, 
 wise, if somewhat fussy ; for the rest, an excellent 
 house mother I believe, full of affection and tender 
 anxiety for her children and husband. By degrees 
 she had developed the modest prosperity of her 
 household into something of decidedly ' genteel ' 
 (Annan ' gentility '), and having left the rest of the 
 Irving kindred to their rustic solidities, had prob- 
 ably but little practical familiarity with most of 
 them, though never any quarrel or estrangement 
 that I heard of. Her Gavin was never careful of 
 gentility ; a roomy simplicity and freedom (as of a 
 man in a dressing-gown) his chief aim. In my time 
 he seemed mostly to lounge about ; superintended 
 his tanning only from afar, and at length gave it up 
 altogether. There were four other brothers, three 
 of them small farmers, and a fourth who followed 
 some cattle traffic in Annan, and was well esteemed 
 there for his honest simple ways. No sister of 
 theirs did I ever hear of ; nor what their father had 
 been ; some honest little farmer, he too, I conclude. 
 Their mother, Edward Irving's aged grandmother, 
 I well remember to have seen ; once, perhaps twice, 
 at her son Greorge's fireside; a good old woman, 
 half in dotage, and the only creature I ever saw
 
 Edward Irving. 75 
 
 spinning with a distaff and no other apparatus but 
 tow .or wool. All these Irvings were of blond or 
 even red complexion red hair a prevailing or sole 
 colour in several of their families. Gavin himself 
 was reddish, or at least sandy blond ; but all his 
 children had beautifully coal-black hair, except one 
 girl, the youngest of the set but two, who was 
 carroty like her cousins. The brunette mother 
 with her swift black eyes had prevailed so far. 
 Enough now for the genealogy superabundantly 
 enough. 
 
 One of the circumstances of Irving's boyhood 
 ought not to be neglected by his biographer the 
 remarkable schoolmaster he had. ' Old Adam Hope,' 
 perhaps not yet fifty in Irving's time, was all along a 
 notability in Annan. 
 
 What had been his specific history or employ- 
 ment before this of schoolmastering I do not know, 
 nor was he ever my schoolmaster except incidentally 
 for a few weeks, once or twice, as substitute for some 
 absentee who had the office. But I can remember 
 on one such occasion reading in Sallust with him, and 
 how he read it and drilled us in it ; and I have often 
 enough seen him teach, and knew him well enough. A 
 strong-built, bony, but lean kind of man, of brown 
 complexion, and a pair of the sharpest, not the
 
 76 Edward Irving. 
 
 sweetest, black eyes. Walked in a lounging, stooping 
 figure; in the street broad-brimmed and in clean 
 frugal rustic clothes ; in his schoolroom bare-headed, 
 hands usually crossed over back, and with his effec- 
 tive leather strap (' cat ' as he called it, not tawse, 
 for it was not slit at all) hanging ready over his 
 thumb if requisite anywhere. In my time he had a 
 couple of his front teeth quite black, which was very 
 visible, as his mouth usually wore a settled humanly 
 contemptuous grin. ' Nothing good to be expected 
 from you or from those you came of, ye little whelps, 
 but we must get from you the best you have, and 
 not complain of anything.' This was what the grin 
 seemed to say ; but the black teeth (Jet-black, for he 
 chewed tobacco also to a slight extent, never spitting) 
 were always mysterious to me, till at length I found 
 they were of cork, the product of Adam's frugal 
 penknife, and could be removed at pleasure. He 
 was a man humanly contemptuous of the world, and 
 valued 'suffrages' at a most low figure in compa- 
 rison. I should judge an extremely proud man; 
 for the rest an inexorable logician, a Calvinist at all 
 points, and Burgher Scotch Seceder to the backbone. 
 He had written a tiny English grammar latterly 
 (after Irving's time and before mine) which was a 
 very compact, lucid, and complete little piece ; and
 
 Edward Irving. 77 
 
 was regarded by the natives, especially the young 
 natives who had to learn from it, with a certain awe, 
 the feat of authorship in print being then somewhat 
 stupendous and beyond example in those parts. 
 He did not know very much, though still a good 
 something ; Geometry (of Euclid), Latin, arithmetic, 
 English Syntax. But what he did profess or imagine 
 himself to know, he knew in every fibre, and to the 
 very bottom. More rigorously solid teacher of the 
 young idea, so far as he could carry it, you might 
 have searched for through the world in vain. Self- 
 delusion, half-knowledge, sham instead of reality, 
 could not get existed in his presence. He had a 
 Socratic way with him ; would accept the hopeless 
 pupil's half knowledge, or plausible sham of know- 
 ledge, with a kind of welcome. ' Hm I hm ! yes ; ' and 
 then gently enough begin a chain of enquiries more 
 and more surprising to the poor pupil, till he had re- 
 duced him to zero to mere non plus ultra, and the 
 dismal perception that his sham of knowledge had been 
 flat rnisknowledge, with a spice of dishonesty added. 
 This was what he called * making a boy fast.' For the 
 poor boy had to sit in his place under arrest all day 
 cr day after day, meditating those dismal new- 
 revealed facts, and beating ineffectually his poor 
 brains for some solution of the mystery and feasible
 
 78 Edward Irving. 
 
 road out. He might apply again at pleasure. * I 
 have made it out, sir.' But if again found self- 
 deluded, it was only a new padlock to those fastenings 
 of his. They were very miserable to the poor peni- 
 tent, or impenitent, wretch. 
 
 I remember my father once describing to us a 
 call he had made on Hope during the mid-day hour 
 of interval, whom he found reading or writing some- 
 thing, not having cared to lock the door and to go 
 home, with three or four bits of boys sitting prisoners, 
 * made fast ' in different parts of the room ; all 
 perfectly miserable, each with a rim of black worked 
 out round his eye-sockets (the effect of salt tears 
 wiped by knuckles rather dirty). Adam, though 
 not cat-like of temper or intention, had a kind of 
 cat-pleasure in surveying and playing with these 
 captive mice. He was a praise and glory to well- 
 doing boys, a beneficent terror to the ill-doing or 
 dishonest blockhead sort ; and did what was in his 
 power to educe (or educate) and make available the 
 net amount of faculty discoverable in each, and 
 separate firmly the known from the unknown or 
 misknown in those young heads. On Irving, who 
 always spoke of him with mirthful affection, he had 
 produced quietly not a little effect ; prepared him 
 well for his triumphs in geometry and Latin at
 
 Edward Irving. 79 
 
 college, and through life you could always notice, 
 overhung by such strange draperies and huge 
 superstructures so foreign to it, something of that 
 primaeval basis of rigorous logic and clear articula- 
 tion laid for him in boyhood by old Adam Hope. 
 Old Adam, indeed, if you know the Annanites and 
 him, will be curiously found visible there to this 
 day ; an argumentative, clear-headed, sound-hearted, 
 if rather conceited and contentious set of people, 
 more given to intellectual pursuits than some of 
 their neighbours. I consider Adam an original meri- 
 torious kind of man, and regret to think that his 
 sphere was so limited. In my youngest years his 
 brown, quietly severe face was familiar to me in 
 Ecclefechan Meeting-house (my venerable Mr. John- 
 ston's hearers on Sundays, as will be afterwards 
 noted). Younger cousins of his, excellent honest 
 people, I have since met (David Hope, merchant 
 in Glasgow ; William Hope, scholar in Edinburgh, 
 etc.); and one tall, straight old uncle of his, 
 very clean always, brown as mahogany and with a 
 head white as snow, I remember very clearly as the 
 picture of gravity and pious seriousness in that poor 
 Ecclefechan place of worship, concerning whom I will 
 report one anecdote and so end. Old David Hope 
 that was his name lived on a little farm close by
 
 So Edward Irving. 
 
 Solway shore a mile or two east of Annan. A wet 
 country, with late harvests ; which (as in this year 
 1866) are sometimes incredibly difficult to save. Ten 
 days continuously pouring ; then a day, perhaps two 
 days, of drought, part of them it may be of roaring 
 wind during which the moments are golden for you, 
 and perhaps you had better work all night, as pre- 
 sently there will be deluges again. David's stuff, 
 one such morning, was all standing dry again, ready 
 to be saved still, if he stood to it, which was much 
 his intention. Breakfast (wholesome hasty porridge) 
 was soon over, and next in course came family wor- 
 ship, what they call taking the Book (or Books, i.e. 
 taking your Bible, Psalm and chapter always part 
 of the service). David was putting on his spectacles 
 when somebody rushed in. * Such a raging wind 
 risen as will drive the stooks (shocks) into the sea 
 if let alone.' ' Wind ! ' answered David, ' wind canna 
 get ae straw that has been appointed mine. Sit down 
 and let us worship God ' (that rides in the whirlwind) ! 
 There is a kind of citizen which Britain used to have, 
 very different from the millionaire Hebrews, Roth- 
 schild money-changers, Demosthenes Disraelis, and 
 inspired young Groschens and their * unexampled 
 prosperity.' Weep, Britain, if the latter are among 
 the honourable you now have !
 
 Edward Irving. 8 1 
 
 One other circumstance that peculiarly deserves 
 notice in Irving's young life, and perhaps the only 
 other one, is also connected with Adam Hope 
 Irving's young religion. Annandale was not an 
 irreligious country, though Annan itself (owing to a 
 drunken clergyman and the logical habits they 
 cultivated) was more given to sceptical free-thinking 
 than other places. The greatly prevailing fashion 
 was a decent form of devoutness, and pious theo- 
 retically anxious regard for things sacred, in all 
 which the Irving household stood fairly on a level 
 with its neighbours, or perhaps above most of them. 
 They went duly to Kirk, strove still to tolerate and 
 almost to respect their unfortunate minister (who 
 had succeeded a father greatly esteemed in that 
 office, and was a man of gifts himself, and of much 
 goodnature, though so far gone astray). Nothing 
 of profane, or of the least tendency that way, was 
 usually seen, or would have been suffered without 
 protest and grave rebuke in Irving's environment, 
 near or remote. At the same time this other fact was 
 visible enough if you examined. A man who awoke 
 to the belief that he actually had a soul to be saved 
 or lost was apt to be found among the Dissenting 
 people, and to have given up attendance on the 
 Kirk. It was ungenteel for him to attend the 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 82 Edward Irving. 
 
 meeting-house, but he found it to be altogether 
 salutary. This was the case throughout in Irving's 
 district and mine. As I had remarked for myself, 
 nobody teaching me, at an early period of my inves- 
 tigations into men and things, I concluded it would 
 be generally so over Scotland, but found when I went 
 north to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife, etc., that it was 
 not, or by no means so perceptibly was. For the 
 rest, all Dissent in Scotland is merely a stricter 
 adherence to the National Kirk in all points ; and 
 the then Dissenterage is definable to moderns simply 
 as a ' Free Kirk, making no noise.' It had quietly 
 (about 1760), after much haggle and remonstrance, 
 * seceded,' or walked out of its stipends, officialities, 
 and dignities, greatly to the mute sorrow of religi- 
 ous Scotland, and was still, in a strict manner, on the 
 united voluntary principle, preaching to Ihe people 
 what of best and sacredest it could. Not that there 
 was not something of rigour, of severity, a lean- 
 minded controversial spirit, among certain brethren, 
 mostly of the laity, I think ; narrow nebs (narrow of 
 neb, i.e. of nose or bill) as the outsiders called them ; 
 of flowerage, or free harmonious beauty, there could 
 not well be much in this system. But really, except 
 on stated occasions (annual fast-day for instance, 
 when you were reminded that ' a testimony had been
 
 Edward Irving. 83 
 
 lifted up,' of which you were now the bearers) there 
 was little, almost no talk, especially no preaching at 
 all, about * patronage,' or secular controversy, but all 
 turned on the weightier and universal matters of the 
 law, and was considerably entitled to say for itself, 
 ( Hear, all men.' Very venerable are those old Seceder 
 clergy to me now when I look back on them. Most 
 of the chief figures among them in Irving's time 
 and mine were hoary old men ; men so like what one 
 might call antique Evangelists in ruder vesture, and 
 * poor scholars and gentlemen of Christ,' I have no- 
 where met with in monasteries or churches, among 
 Protestant or Papal clergy, in any country of the 
 world. All this is altered utterly at present, I grieve 
 to say, and gone to as good as nothing or worse. It 
 began to alter just about that very period, on the 
 death of those old hoary heads, and has gone on with 
 increasing velocity ever since. Irving and I were 
 probably among the last products it delivered before 
 gliding off, and then rushing off into self-conscious- 
 ness, arrogancy, insincerity, jangle, and vulgarity, 
 which I fear are now very much the definition of it. 
 Irving's concern with the matter had been as follows, 
 brief, but, I believe, ineffaceable through life. 
 
 Adam Hope was a rigid Seceder, as all his kin 
 and connections were ; and in and about Annan,
 
 84 Edward Irving. 
 
 equally rigid some of them, less rigid others, were a 
 considerable number of such, who indeed some few 
 years hence combined themselves into an Annan 
 Burgher congregation, and set up a meeting-house 
 and minister of their own. For the present they 
 had none, nor had thought of such a thing. Vener- 
 able Mr. Johnston of Ecclefechan, six miles off, 
 was their only minister, and to him duly on Sunday 
 Adam and a select group were in the habit of 
 pilgriming for sermon. Less zealous brethren would 
 perhaps pretermit in bad weather, but I suppose it 
 had to be very bad when Adam and most of his 
 group failed to appear. The distance six miles 
 twice was nothing singular in this case; one 
 family, whose streaming plaids, hung up to drip, I 
 remember to have noticed one wet Sunday, pious 
 Scotch weavers settled near Carlisle, I was told, were 
 in the habit of walking fifteen miles twice for their 
 sermon, since it was not to be had nearer. A curious 
 phasis of things, quite vanished now, with whatever 
 of divinity and good was in it, and whatever of merely 
 human and not so good. From reflection of his own, 
 aided or perhaps awakened by study of Adam Hope 
 and his example (for I think there could not be 
 direct speech or persuasion from Adam in such a 
 matter) the boy Edward joined himself to Adam's
 
 Edward Irving. 85 
 
 pilgriming group, and regularly trotted by their side 
 to Ecclefechan for sermon-listening, and occasionally 
 joining in their pious discourse thither and back. 
 He might be then in his tenth year ; distinguished 
 hitherto, both his elder brother John and he, by 
 their wild love of sport as well as readiness in school 
 lessons. John had quite refused this Ecclefechan 
 adventure. And no doubt done what he could to 
 prevent it, for father and mother looked on it like- 
 wise with dubious or disapproving eyes ; ' Why run 
 into these ultra courses, sirrah ? ' and Edward had no 
 furtherance in it except from within. How long he 
 persisted I do not know, possibly a year or two, or 
 occasionally, almost till he went to college. I have 
 heard him speak of the thing long afterwards in a 
 genially mirthful way; well recognising what a 
 fantastic, pitifully pedantic, and serio-ridiculous set 
 these road companions of his mostly were. I myself 
 remember two of them who were by no means heroic 
 to me. ' Willie Drummond,' a little man with 
 mournful goggle eyes, a tailor I almost think, and 
 ' Joe Blacklock ' (Blai-lock) a rickety stocking- 
 weaver, with protruding chin and one leg too short 
 for the other short one, who seemed to me an 
 abundantly solemn and much too infallible and cap- 
 tious little fellow. Edward threw me off with gnsto
 
 86 Edward Irving. 
 
 outline likenesses of these among the others, and we 
 laughed heartily without malice. Edward's religion 
 in after years, though it ran always in the blood 
 and life of him, was never shrieky or narrow ; 
 but even in his last times, with their miserable 
 troubles and confusions, spoke always with a 
 sonorous deep tone, like the voice of a man frank 
 and sincere addressing men. To the last or almost 
 to the last I could occasionally raise a genial old 
 Annandale laugh out of him which is now pathetic 
 to me to remember. 
 
 I will say no more of Irving's boyhood. He 
 musi have sat often enough in Ecclefechan meeting- 
 housi . along with me, but I never noticed or knew, 
 and had not indeed heard of him till I went to 
 Annan School (1806; a new 'Academy' forsooth, 
 with Adam Hope for ' English master '), and Irving 
 perhaps two years before had left for college. I 
 must bid adieu also to that poor temple of my 
 childhood, to me more sacred at this moment 
 than perhaps the biggest cathedral then extant could 
 have been; rude, rustic, bare no temple in the world 
 was more so but there were sacred lambencies, 
 tongues of authentic flame from heaven which 
 kindled what was best in one, what has not yet gone 
 out. Strangely vivid to me some twelve or twenty
 
 Edward Irving. 87 
 
 of those old faces whom I used to see every Sunday, 
 whose names, employments, precise dwelling-places 
 I never knew, but whose portraits are yet clear to 
 me as in a mirror their heavy-laden, patient, ever- 
 attentive faces. Fallen solitary most of them. Children 
 all away, wife away for ever, or it might be wife still 
 there (one such case I well remember) constant like a 
 shadow and grown very like her old man the thrifty, 
 cleanly poverty of these good people, their well-saved 
 old coarse clothes (tailed waistcoats down to mid- 
 thigh, a fashion quite dead twenty years before) ; all 
 this I occasionally see as with eyes sixty or sixty-five 
 years off, and hear the very voice of my mother upon 
 it when sometimes I would be questioning about the 
 persons of the drama and endeavouring to describe 
 and identify them to her for that purpose. Oh, 
 ever-miraculous time ! death ! life ! 
 
 Probably it was in 1808, April or May, after 
 college time, that I first saw Irving. I had got 
 over my worst miseries in that doleful and hateful 
 ' Academy ' life of mine (which lasted three years in 
 all) ; had begun, in spite of precept, to strike about 
 me, to defend myself by hand and voice ; had made 
 some comradeship with one or two of my own 
 age, and was reasonably becoming alive in the place 
 and its interests. I remember to have felt some
 
 88 Edward Irving. 
 
 human curiosity and satisfaction when the noted 
 Edward Irving, English Mr. Hope escorting intro- 
 duced himself in our Latin class-room one bright 
 forenoon. Hope was essentially the introducer ; this 
 was our rector's class-room. Irving's visit to the 
 school had been specially to Adam Hope, his own old 
 teacher, who now brought him down nothing loth. 
 Perhaps our Mathematics gentleman, one Morley (an 
 excellent Cumberland man, whom I loved much and 
 who taught me well) had also stept in in honour of 
 such a stranger. The road from Adam's room to ours 
 lay through Mr. Morley's. Ours was a big airy room 
 lighted from both sides, desks and benches occupy- 
 ing scarcely the smaller half of the floor, better half 
 belonged to the rector, and to the classes he called 
 up from time to time. It was altogether vacant at 
 that moment, and the interview perhaps of ten to 
 fifteen minutes transacted itself in a standing posture 
 there. We were all of us attentive with eye and 
 ear, or as attentive as we durst be, while by theory 
 < preparing our lessons.' Irving was scrupulously 
 dressed ; black coat, ditto tight pantaloons in the 
 fashion of the day ; clerically black his prevailing hue ; 
 and looked very neat, self-possessed, and enviable. 
 A flourishing slip of a youth, with coal-black hair, 
 swarthy clear complexion, very straight on his feet,
 
 Edward Irving. 89 
 
 and except for the glaring squint alone, decidedly 
 handsome. We didn't hear everything ; indeed we 
 heard nothing that was of the least moment or worth 
 remembering. Gathered in general that the talk was 
 all about Edinburgh, of this professor and of that, 
 and their merits and method (' wonderful world up 
 yonder, and this fellow has been in it and can talk 
 of it in that easy cool way'). The last professor 
 touched upon, I think, must have been mathematical 
 Leslie (at that time totally non-extant to me), for 
 the one particular I clearly recollect was some- 
 thing from Irving about new doctrines by some- 
 body (doubtless Leslie) 'concerning the circle,' 
 which last word he pronounced ' circul ' with a 
 certain preciosity which was noticeable slightly in 
 other parts of his behaviour. Shortly after this of 
 ' circul,' he courteously (had been very courteous all 
 the time, and unassuming in the main,) made his bow, 
 and the interview melted instantly away. For years 
 I don't remember to have seen Irving's face again. 
 
 Seven years come and gone. It was now the 
 winter of 1815. I had myself been in Edinburgh 
 College, and above a year ago had duly quitted it. 
 Had got (by competition at Dumfries, summer 1814) 
 to. be ' mathematical master ' in Annan Academy, 
 with some potential outlook on divinity as ultima-
 
 go Edward Irving. 
 
 turn (a rural divinity student visiting Edinburgh 
 for a few days each year, and ' delivering ' certain 
 ' discourses '). Six years of that would bring you to 
 the church gate, as four years of continuous * divi- 
 nity hall ' would ; unlucky only that in my case I 
 had never had the least enthusiasm for the business 
 (and there were even grave prohibitive doubts more 
 and more rising ahead) : both branches of my situ- 
 ation flatly contradictory to all ideals or wishes of 
 mine, especially the Annan one, as the closely 
 actual and the daily and hourly pressing on me, 
 while the other lay theoretic, still well ahead, and 
 perhaps avoidable. One attraction one only 
 there was in my Annan business. I was supporting 
 myself, even saving some few pounds of my poor 
 60L or 701. annually, against a rainy day, and not a 
 burden to my ever-generous father any more. But 
 in all other points of view I was abundantly 
 lonesome, uncomfortable, and out of place there. 
 Didn't go and visit the people there. (Ought to 
 have pushed myself in a little silently, and sought 
 invitations. Such their form of special politeness, 
 which I was far too shy and proud to be able for.) 
 Had the character of morose dissociableness ; in 
 short, thoroughly detested my function and position, 
 though understood to be honestly doing the duties
 
 Edward Irving. 9 1 
 
 of it, and held for solacement and company to the 
 few books I could command, and an accidental 
 friend I had in the neighbourhood (Mr. Cherch and 
 his wife, of Hitchill ; Kev. Henry Duncan, of Ruth- 
 well, and ditto. These were the two bright and 
 brightest houses for me. My thanks to them, now 
 and always). As to my schoolmaster function it was 
 never said I misdid it much ; a clear and cor- 
 rect expositor and enforcer. But from the first, 
 especially with such adjuncts, I disliked it, and by 
 swift degrees grew to hate it more and more. Some 
 four years in all I had of it ; two in Annan, two in 
 Kirkcaldy under much improved social accompani- 
 ments. And at the end my solitary desperate con- 
 clusion was fixed : that I, for my own part, would 
 prefer to perish in the ditch, if necessary, rather 
 than continue living by such a trade, and peremp- 
 torily gave it up accordingly. This long preface 
 will serve to explain the small passage of colli- 
 sion that occurred between Irving and me on our 
 first meeting in this world. 
 
 I had heard much of Irving all along ; how 
 distinguished in studies, how splendidly successful 
 as teacher, how two professors had sent him out to 
 Haddington, and how his new Academy and new 
 methods were illuminating and astonishing every-
 
 92 Edward Irving. 
 
 thing there. (Alas ! there was one little pupil he 
 had there, with her prettiest little penna, p&nncB from 
 under the table, and let me be a boy too, papa ! who 
 was to be of endless moment, and who alone was of 
 any moment to me in all that !) I don't remember 
 any malicious envy whatever towards this great 
 Irving of the distance. For his greatness in study 
 and learning I certainly might have had a tendency, 
 hadn't I struggled against it, and tried to make it 
 emulation : ' Do the like, do thou the like under 
 difficulties ! ' As to his schoolmaster success, I 
 cared little about that, and easily flung that out 
 when it came across me. But naturally all this be- 
 trumpeting of Irving to me (in which I could some- 
 times trace some touch of malice to myself), had not 
 awakened in me any love towards this victorious 
 man. 'Ich gonnte Ihn,' as the Germans phrase it; 
 but, in all strictness, nothing more. 
 
 About Christmas time (1815) I had gone with 
 great pleasure to see Edinburgh again, and read in 
 Divinity Hall a Latin discourse 'exegesis' they 
 call it there on the question, ' Num detur religio 
 naturalis ? ' It was the second, and proved to be 
 the last, of my performances on that treatise. My 
 first, an English sermon on the words, ' Before I was 
 afflicted I went astray, but now' etc. etc., a very
 
 Edward Irving. 93 
 
 weak, flowery, and sentimental piece, had been 
 achieved in 1814, a few months after my leaving 
 for Annan. Piece second, too, I suppose, was weak 
 enough, but I still remember the kind of innocent 
 satisfaction I had in turning it into Latin in my 
 solitude, and my slight and momentary (by no 
 means deep or sincere) sense of pleasure in the 
 bits of compliments and flimsy approbation from 
 comrades and professors on both these occasions. 
 Before Christmas Day I had got rid of my exegesis, 
 and had still a week of holiday ahead for old 
 acquaintances and Edinburgh things, which was the 
 real charm of my official errand thither. 
 
 One night I had gone over to Rose Street to a 
 certain Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Waugh's, there, who 
 was a kind of maternal cousin or half-cousin of my 
 own. Had been my school comrade ; several years 
 older ; item : my predecessor in the Annan ' mathe- 
 matical mastership ; ' immediate successor he of 
 Morley, and a great favourite in Annan society in 
 comparison with some ; and who, though not with- 
 out gifts, proved gradually to be intrinsically a fool, 
 and by his insolvencies and confused futilities as 
 doctor there in his native place, has left a kind 
 of remembrance, ludicrous, partly contemptuous, 
 though not without kindliness too, and even some-
 
 94 Edicard Irving. 
 
 thing of respect. His father, with whom I had 
 been boarded while a scholar at Annan, was one of 
 the most respectable and yet laughable of mankind ; 
 a ludicrous caricature of originality, honesty, and 
 faithful discernment and practice all in the awk- 
 ward form. Took much care of his money, how- 
 ever, which this, his only son, had now inherited, 
 and did not keep very long. Of Waugh senior, and 
 even of Waugh junior, there might be considerable 
 gossiping and quizzical detailing. They failed not 
 to rise now and then, especially Waugh senior did 
 not, between Irving and me, always with hearty 
 ha-ha's, and the finest recognition on Irving's part 
 when we came to be companions afterwards. But 
 whither am I running with so interminable a pre- 
 face to one of the smallest incidents conceivable 9 
 
 I was sitting in Waugh junior's that evening, 
 not too vigorously conversing, when Waugh's door 
 went open, and there stept in Irving, and one Nichol, 
 a mathematical teacher in Edinburgh, an intimate 
 of his, a shrewd, merry, and very social kind of 
 person, whom I did not then know, except by name. 
 Irving was over, doubtless from Kirkcaldy, on his 
 holidays, and had probably been dining with NichoL 
 The party was to myself not unwelcome, though 
 somewhat alarming. Xichol, I perceived, might be
 
 Edward Irviny. 95 
 
 by some three or four years the eldest of us; a 
 sharp man, with mouth rather quizzically close. I 
 was by some three or four years the youngest ; and 
 here was Trismegistus Irving, a victorious bashaw, 
 while poor I was so much the reverse. The conver- 
 sation in a minute or two became quite special, and 
 my unwilling self the centre of it ; Irving directing 
 upon me a whole series of questions about Annan 
 matters, social or domestic mostly ; of which I knew 
 little, and had less than no wish to speak, though I 
 strove politely to answer succinctly what I could. 
 In the good Irving all this was very natural, nor 
 was there in him, I am well sure, the slightest 
 notion to hurt me or be tyrannous to me. Far the 
 reverse his mood at all times towards all men. But 
 there was, I conjecture, something of conscious un- 
 questionable superiority, of careless natural de haut 
 en 6<w which fretted on me, and might be render- 
 ing my answers more and more and more succinct. 
 
 . my small knowledge was failing ; and I had 
 
 more than once on certain points, as ' Has Mrs. 
 
 got a baby ? is it son or daughter ? ' and the like, 
 answered candidly, ' I don't know.' 
 
 I think three or two such answers to such ques- 
 tions had followed in succession, when Irving, feel- 
 iiig uneasy, and in a dim manner that the game
 
 96 Edward Irving. 
 
 was going wrong, answered in gruffish yet not ill- 
 natured tone, * You seem to know nothing ! ' To 
 which. I with prompt emphasis, somewhat provoked, 
 replied : ' Sir, by what right do you try my know- 
 ledge in this way ? Are you grand inquisitor, or 
 have you authority to question people and cross- 
 question at discretion ? I have had no interest to 
 inform myself about the births in Annan, and care 
 not if the process of birth and generation there should 
 cease and determine altogether ! ' 'A bad example 
 that,' cried Nichol, breaking into laughter; 'that 
 would never do for me (a fellow that needs pupils ') ; 
 and laughed heartily, joined by Waugh, and perhaps 
 Irving, so that the thing passed off more smoothly 
 than might have been expected ; though Irving, of 
 course, felt a little hurt, and I think did not alto- 
 gether hide it from me while the interview still 
 lasted, which was only a short while. This was my 
 first meeting with the man whom I had afterwards, 
 and very soon, such cause to love. We never spoke 
 of this small unpleasant passage of fence, I believe, 
 and there never was another like it between us in 
 the world. Irving did not want some due heat of 
 temper, and there was a kind of joyous swagger 
 traceable in his manner in this prosperous young 
 time ; but the basis of him at all times was fine
 
 Edward Irving. 97 
 
 manly sociality, and the richest, truest good nature. 
 Very different from the new friend he was about 
 picking up. No swagger in this latter, but a want 
 of it which was almost still worse. Not sanguine 
 and diffusive he, but biliary and intense. Far too 
 sarcastic for a young man,' said several in the 
 years now coming. 
 
 Within six or eight months of this, probably 
 about the end of July 1816, happened a new meet- 
 ing with Irving. Adam Hope's wife had died of a 
 sudden. I went up the second or third evening to 
 testify my silent condolence with the poor old man. 
 Can still remember his gloomy look, speechless, 
 and the thankful pressure of his hand. A number 
 of people were there ; among the rest, to my sur- 
 prise, Irving home on his Kirkcaldy holidays who 
 seemed to be kindly taking a sort of lead in the 
 little managements. He conducted worship, I re- 
 member, ' taking the Book,' which was the only fit 
 thing he could settle to, and he did it in a free, 
 flowing, modest, and altogether appropriate manner, 
 * precenting,' or leading off the Psalm too himself, 
 his voice melodiously strong, and his tune, ' St. Paul's,' 
 truly sung, which was a new merit in him to me. 
 Quite beyond my own capacities at that time. If I 
 had been in doubts about his reception of me, after 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 Edward Irving. 
 
 that of Kose Street, Edinburgh, he quickly and for 
 ever ended them by a friendliness which, in wider 
 scenes, might have been called chivalrous. At first 
 sight he heartily shook my hand, welcomed me as if 
 I had been a valued old acquaintance, almost a 
 brother, and before my leaving, after worship was 
 done, came up to me again, and with the frankest 
 tone said : ' You are coming to Kirkcaldy to look 
 about you in a month or two. You know I am 
 there. My house and all that I can do for you is 
 yours : two Annandale people must not be strangers 
 in Fife ! ' The ' doubting Thomas ' durst not quite 
 believe all this, so chivalrous was it, but felt pleased 
 and relieved by the fine and sincere tone of it, and 
 thought to himself, ' Well, it would be pretty ! ' 
 
 But to understand the full chivalry of Irving, 
 know first what my errand to Kirkcaldy now was. 
 
 Several months before this, rumours had come 
 of some break-up in Irving's triumphant Kirkcaldy 
 kingdom. * A terribly severe master, isn't he ? 
 Brings his pupils on amazingly. Yes, truly, but at 
 such an expense of cruelty to them. Very proud, 
 too ; no standing of him ; ' him, the least cruel of 
 men, but obliged and expected to go at high-pres- 
 sure speed, and no resource left but that of spurring 
 on the laggard. In short, a portion, perhaps be-
 
 Edward Irving. 99 
 
 tween a third and fourth part, of Irving's Kirkcaldy 
 patrons, feeling these griefs, and finding small com- 
 fort or result in complaining to Irving, had gra- 
 dually determined to be off from him, and had hit 
 upon a resource which they thought would serve. 
 ' Buy off the old parish head schoolmaster,' they 
 said ; * let Hume have his 251. of salary and go, the 
 lazy, effete old creature. We will apply again to 
 Professors Christison and Leslie, the same who 
 sent us Irving, to send us another " classical and 
 mathematical " who can start fair.' And accordingly, 
 by a letter from Christison, who had never noticed 
 me while in his class, nor could distinguish me from 
 another Mr. Irving Carlyle, an older, considerably 
 bigger boy, with red hair, wild buck teeth, and 
 scorched complexion, and the worst Latinist of all 
 my acquaintance (so dark was the good professor's 
 class room, physically and otherwise), I learnt, 
 much to my surprise and gratification, ' that Pro- 
 fessor Leslie had been with him, that etc. etc., as 
 above, and in brief, that I was the nominee if I 
 would accept.' Several letters passed on the sub- 
 ject, and it had been settled, shortly before this 
 meeting with Irving, that I was in my near vaca- 
 tion time end of August to visit Kirkcaldy, take 
 
 H 2
 
 IOO Edward Irving. 
 
 a personal view of everything, and then say yes if I 
 could, as seemed likely. 
 
 Thus stood matters when Irving received me in 
 the way described. Xoble, I must say, when you 
 put it altogether ! Eoom for plenty of the vulgarest 
 peddling feelings there was, and there must still 
 have been between us, had either of us, especially 
 had Irving, been of pedlar nature. And I can say 
 there could no two Kaisers, nor Charlemagne and 
 Barbarossa, had they neighboured one another in 
 the empire of Europe, been more completely rid of 
 all that sordes, than were we two schoolmasters in 
 the burgh of Kirkcaldy. I made my visit, August 
 coming, which was full of interest to me. Saw St. 
 Andrews, etc.; saw a fine, frank, wholesome-looking 
 people of the burgher grandees ; liked Irving more 
 and more, and settled to return in a couple of 
 months ' for good,' which I may well say it was, 
 thanks to Irving principally. 
 
 George Irving, Edward's youngest brother (who 
 died in London as M.D., beginning practice about 
 1833), had met me as he returned from his lessons, 
 when I first came along the street of Kirkcaldy on 
 that sunny afternoon (August 1816), and with blithe 
 looks and words had pointed out where his brothei 
 lived a biggish, simple house on the sands. The
 
 Edward Irving. i o r 
 
 when of my first call there I do not now remem- 
 ber, but have still brightly in mind how exu- 
 berantly good Irving was ; how he took me into his 
 library, a rough, littery, but considerable collection 
 far beyond what I had and said, cheerily fling- 
 ing out his arms, ' Upon all these you have will and 
 waygate,' an expressive Annandale phrase of the 
 completest welcome, which I failed not of using 
 by-and-by. I also recollect lodging with him for 
 a night or two nights about that time. Bright 
 moonshine ; waves all dancing and glancing out 
 of window, and beautifully humming and lulla- 
 by ing on that fine long sandy beach, where he and 
 I so often walked and communed afterwards. From 
 the first we honestly liked one another and grew 
 intimate, nor was there ever, while we both lived, 
 any cloud or grudge between us, or an interruption 
 of our feelings for a day or hour. Blessed conquest 
 of a friend in this world ! That was mainly all the 
 wealth I had for five or six years coming, and it 
 made my life in Kirkcaldy (i.e. till near 1819, I 
 think), a happy season in comparison, and a genially 
 useful. Youth itself healthy, well-intending youth 
 is so full of opulences. I always rather like 
 Kirkcaldy to this day. Annan the reverse rather 
 still when its gueuseries come into my head, and
 
 IO2 Edward Irciny. 
 
 my solitary quasi-enchanted position among them 
 unpermitted to kick them into the sea. 
 
 Irving's library was of great use to me ; Gibbon, 
 Hume, etc. I think I must have read it almost 
 through. Inconceivable to me now with what 
 ardour, with what greedy velocity, literally above 
 ten times the speed I can now make with any book. 
 Gibbon, in particular, I recollect to have read at the 
 rate of a volume a day (twelve volumes in all) ; and 
 I have still a fair recollection of it, though seldom 
 looking into it since. It was, of all the books, per- 
 haps the most impressive on me in my then stage 
 of investigation and state of mind. I by no means 
 completely admired Gibbon, perhaps not more than 
 I now do ; but his winged sarcasms, so quiet and 
 yet so conclusively transpiercing and killing dead, 
 were often admirable potent and illuminative to 
 me. Nor did I fail to recognise his great power of 
 investigating, ascertaining, grouping, and narrating ; 
 though the latter had always, then as now, some- 
 thing of a Drury Lane character, the colours strong 
 but coarse, and set off by lights from the side 
 scenes. We had books from Edinburgh College 
 Library, too. (I remember Bailly's ' Histoire de 
 1' Astronomic,' ancient and also modern, which con- 
 siderably disappointed me.) On Irving's shelves
 
 Edward Irving. 103 
 
 were the small Didot French classics in quantity. 
 With my appetite sharp, I must have read of 
 French and English (for I don't recollect much 
 classicality, only something of mathematics in in- 
 termittent spasms), a great deal during those years. 
 Irving himself, I found, was not, nor had been, 
 much of a reader ; but he had, with solid ingenuity 
 and judgment, by some briefer process of his own, 
 fished out correctly from many books the substance 
 of what they handled, and of what conclusions they 
 came to. This he possessed, and could produce in 
 an 'honest' manner, always when occasion came. 
 He delighted to hear me give accounts of my read- 
 ing, which were often enough a theme between us, 
 and to me as well a profitable and pleasant one. 
 He had gathered by natural sagacity and insight, 
 from conversation and enquiry, a great deal of prac- 
 tical knowledge and information on things extant 
 round him, which was quite defective in me the 
 recluse. We never wanted for instructive and 
 pleasant talk while together. He had a most hearty, 
 if not very refined, sense of the ludicrous ; a broad 
 genial laugh in him always ready. His wide just 
 sympathies, his native sagacities, honest-hearted- 
 ness, and good humour, made him the most delight- 
 ful of companions. Such colloquies and such rovings
 
 1O4 Edward Irving. 
 
 about in bright scenes, in talk or in silence, I have 
 never had since. 
 
 The beach of Kirkcaldy in summer twilights, a 
 mile of the smoothest sand, with one long wave 
 coming on gently, steadily, and breaking in gradual 
 explosion into harmless melodious white, at your 
 hand all the way ; the break of it rushing along like 
 a mane of foam, beautifully sounding and advancing, 
 ran from south to north, from the West Burn to 
 Kirkcaldy harbour, through the whole mile's dis- 
 tance. This was a favourite scene, beautiful to me 
 still, in the far away. We roved in the woods too, 
 sometimes till all was dark. I remember very 
 pleasant strolls to Dysart, and once or twice to the 
 caves and queer old saltworks of Wemyss. Once, on 
 a memorable Saturday, we made a pilgrimage to 
 hear Dr. Chalmers at Dunfermline the morrow. 
 It was on the inducting young Mr. Chalmers as 
 minister there ; Chalmers minimus, as he soon got 
 named. The great Chalmers was still in the first 
 flush of his long and always high popularity. ' Let 
 us go and hear him once more,' said Irving. The 
 summer afternoon was beautiful ; beautiful exceed- 
 ingly our solitary walk by Burntisland and the 
 sands and rocks to Inverkeithing, where we lodged, 
 still in a touchingly beautiful manner (host the
 
 Edward Irving. \ o 5 
 
 schoolmaster, one Douglas from Haddington, a 
 clever old acquaintance of Irving's ,in after years 
 a Radical editor of mark; whose wife, for thrift v 
 order, admiration of her husband, etc. etc., was a 
 model and exemplar). Four miles next morning to 
 Dtmfermline and its crowded day, Chalmers rnaxi- 
 mus not disappointing ; and the fourteen miles to 
 Kirkcaldy ending in late darkness, in rain, and 
 thirsty fatigue, which were cheerfully borne. 
 
 Another time, military tents were noticed on 
 the Lomond Hills (on the eastern of the two). 
 4 Trigonometrical survey,' said we ; * Eamsden's theo- 
 dolite, and what not ; ' let us go. And on Satur- 
 day we went. Beautiful the airy prospect from that 
 eastern Lomond far and wide. Five or six tents stood 
 on the top ; one a black-stained cooking one, with 
 a heap of coals close by, the rest all closed and occu- 
 pants gone, except one other, partly open at the eaves, 
 through which you could look in and see a big cir- 
 cular mahogany box (which we took to be the theo- 
 dolite), and a saucy-looking, cold official gentleman 
 diligently walking for exercise, no observation being 
 possible though the day was so bright. No admit- 
 tance, however. Plenty of fine country people had 
 come up, to whom the official had been coldly mono- 
 syllabic, as to us also he was. Polite, with a shade
 
 106 Edward Ircing. 
 
 of contempt, and unwilling to let himself into 
 speech. Irving had great skill in these cases. He 
 remarked and led us into remarking courteously 
 this and that about the famous Eamsden and his 
 instrument, about the famous Trigonometrical Sur- 
 vey, and so forth, till the official, in a few minutes, 
 had to melt ; invited us exceptionally in for an 
 actual inspection of his theodolite, which we reve- 
 rently enjoyed, and saw through it the signal 
 column, a great broad plank he told us, on the top 
 of Ben Lomond, sixty miles off, wavering and shiver- 
 ing like a bit of loose tape, so that no observation 
 could be had. 
 
 We descended the hill re facia. Were to 
 lodge in Leslie with the minister there ; where, 
 possibly enough, Irving had engaged to preach for 
 him next day. I remember a sight of Falkland 
 ruined palace, black, sternly impressive on me, as 
 we came down ; like a black old bit of coffin or 
 * protrusive shin bone,' sticking through from the 
 soil of the dead past. The kirk, too, of next day I 
 remember, and a certain tragical Countess of Eothes. 
 She had been at school in London ; fatherless. In 
 morning walk in the Regent's Park she had noticed 
 a young gardener, had transiently glanced into him, 
 he into her ; and had ended by marrying him, to
 
 Edward Irving. 107 
 
 the horror of society, and ultimately of herself, I 
 suppose ; for he seemed to be a poor little common- 
 place creature, as he stood there beside her. She 
 was now an elderly, a stately woman, of resolute 
 look though slightly sad, and didn't seem to solicit 
 pity. Her I clearly remember, but not who preached, 
 or what ; and, indeed, both ends of this journey are 
 abolished to me as if they had never been. 
 
 Our voyage to Inchkeith one afternoon was 
 again a wholly pleasant adventure, though one of 
 the rashest. There were three of us ; Irv ing's 
 assistant the third, a hardy, clever kind of man 
 named Donaldson, of Aberdeen origin Professor 
 Christison's nephew whom I always rather liked, 
 but who before long, as he could never burst the 
 shell of expert schoolmastering and gerund grind- 
 ing, got parted from me nearly altogether. Our 
 vessel was a rowboat belonging to some neighbours ; 
 in fact, a trim yawl with two oars in it and a bit of 
 helm, reputed to be somewhat crazy and cranky 
 hadn't the weather been so fine, Jsor was Inchkeith 
 our original aim. Our aim had been as follows. A 
 certain Mr. Glen, Burgher minister at Annan, with 
 whom I had lately boarded there, and been domes- 
 tically very happy in comparison, had since, after 
 very painful and most undeserved treatment from
 
 io8 Edward Irving. 
 
 his congregation, seen himself obliged to quit the 
 larren wasp's nest of a thing altogether, and with 
 his wife and young family embark on a missionary 
 career, which had been his earliest thought, as con- 
 science now reminded him, among other considera- 
 tions. He was a most pure and excellent man, of 
 correct superior intellect, and of much modest piety 
 and amiability. Things were at last all ready, and 
 he and his were come to Edinburgh to embark for 
 Astrachan; where, or whereabouts, he continued 
 diligent and zealous for many years ; and was widely 
 esteemed, not by the missionary classes alone. 
 Irving, as well as I, had an affectionate regard for 
 Glen, and on Saturday eve of Glen's last Sunday in 
 Edinburgh, had come across with me to bid his 
 brave wife and him farewell; Edinburgh from 
 Saturday afternoon till the last boat on Sunday eve- 
 ning. This was every now and then a cheery little 
 adventure of ours, always possible again after due 
 pause. We found the Glens in an inn in the Grass 
 Market, only the mistress, who was a handsome, brave, 
 and cheery-hearted woman, altogether keeping up 
 her spirits. I heard Glen preach for the last time, 
 in ' Peddie's Meeting-house,' a large, fine place 
 behind Bristo Street night just sinking as he 
 ended, and the tone of his voice betokening how
 
 Edward Irving. 109 
 
 full the heart was. At the door of Peddie's house I 
 stopped to take leave. Mrs. Glen alone was there 
 for me (Glen not to be seen farther). She wore her 
 old bright saucily-affectionate smile, fearless, su- 
 perior to trouble ; but, in a moment, as I took her 
 hand and said, ' Farewell, then, good be ever with 
 you,' she shot all pale as paper, and we parted 
 mournfully without a word more. This sudden 
 paleness of the spirited woman stuck in my heart 
 like an arrow. All that night and for some three 
 days more I had such a bitterness of sorrow as I 
 hardly recollect otherwise. ' Parting sadder than by 
 death,' thought I, in my foolish inexperience ; ' these 
 good people are to live, and we are never to behold 
 each other more.' Strangely, too, after about four 
 days it went quite off, and I felt it no more. This 
 was, perhaps, still the third day ; at all events, it 
 was the day of Glen's sailing for St. Petersburg, 
 while Irving and I went watching from Kirkcaldy 
 sands the Leith ships outward bound, afternoon 
 sunny, tide ebbing, and settled with ourselves which 
 of the big ships was Glen's. ' That one surely,' we 
 said at last ; ' and it bends so much this way one 
 might, by smart rowing, cut into it, and have still 
 a word with the poor Glens.' Of nautical conclu- 
 sions none could be falser, more ignorant, but we
 
 no Edward Irving. 
 
 instantly set about executing it ; hailed Donaldson, 
 who was somewhere within reach, shoved 'Robie 
 Greg's ' poor green-painted, rickety yawl into the 
 waves (Robie, a good creature who would rejoice to 
 have obliged us), and pushed out with our best 
 speed to intercept that outward-bound big ship. 
 Irving, I think, though the strongest of us, rather 
 preferred the helm part then and afterwards, and 
 did not much take the oar when he could honour- 
 ably help it. His steering, I doubt not, was per- 
 fect, but in the course of half-an-hour it became 
 ludicrously apparent that we were the tortoise 
 chasing the hare, and that we should or could in no 
 wise ever intercept that big ship. Short counsel 
 thereupon, and determination, probably on my hint, 
 to make for Inchkeith at least, and treat ourselves 
 to a visit there. 
 
 We prosperously reached Inchkeith, ran our- 
 selves into a wild stony little bay (west end of the 
 island towards the lighthouse), and stept ashore. 
 Bay in miniature was prettily savage, every stone in 
 it, big or little, lying just as the deluges had left 
 them in ages long gone. Whole island was prettily 
 savage. Grass on it mostly wild and scraggy, but 
 equal to the keep of seven cows. Some patches (little 
 bed-quilts as it were) of weak dishevelled barley
 
 Edward Irving. 1 1 1 
 
 trying to grow under difficulties ; these, except 
 perhaps a square yard or two of potatoes equally ill 
 off, were the only attempt at crop. Inhabitants none 
 except these seven cows, and the lighthouse-keeper 
 and his family. Conies probably abounded, but 
 these were/erce naturae, and didn't show face. In a 
 slight hollow about the centre of the island (which 
 island I think is traversed by a kind of hollow of 
 which our little bay was the western end) were still 
 traceable some ghastly remnants of * Eussian graves,' 
 graves from a Russian squadron which had wintered 
 thereabouts in 1799 and had there buried its dead. 
 Squadron we had often heard talked of, what foul 
 creatures these Russian sailors were, how (for one 
 thing) returning from their sprees in Edinburgh at 
 late hours, they used to climb the lamp-posts in 
 Leith Walk and drink out the train oil irresistible 
 by vigilance of the police, so that Leith Walk fell 
 ever and anon into a more or less eclipsed condition 
 during their stay ! Some rude wooden crosses, rank 
 wild grass, and poor sad grave hillocks almost 
 abolished, were all of memorial they had left. The 
 lighthouse was curious to us ; the only one I ever 
 saw before or since. The * revolving light ' not pro- 
 duced by a single lamp on its axis, but by ten or a 
 dozen of them all set in a wide glass cylinder, each
 
 U2 Edward Irving. 
 
 with its hollow mirror behind it, cylinder alone slowly 
 turning, was quite a discovery to us. Lighthouse- 
 keeper too in another sphere of enquiry was to me 
 quite new ; by far the most life-weary looking 
 mortal I ever saw. Surely no lover of the picturesque, 
 for in nature there was nowhere a more glorious 
 view. He had seven cows too, was well fed, I 
 saw, well clad, had wife and children fairly eligible 
 looking. A shrewd healthy Aberdeen native ; his 
 lighthouse, especially his cylinder and lamps, all 
 kept shining like a new shilling a kindly man 
 withal yet in every feature of face and voice telling 
 you, * Behold the victim of unspeakable ennui.' We 
 got from him down below refection of the best, 
 biscuits and new milk I think almost better in both 
 kinds than I have tasted since. A man not greedy 
 of money either. We left him almost sorrowfully, 
 and never heard of him more. 
 
 The scene in our little bay, as we were about 
 proceeding to launch our boat, seemed to me the 
 beautifullest I had ever beheld. Sun about- setting 
 just in face of us, behind Ben Lomond far away. 
 Edinburgh with its towers ; the great silver mirror of 
 the Frith girt by such a framework of mountains ; 
 cities, rocks and fields and wavy landscapes on all 
 hands of us; and reaching right under foot, as I
 
 Edward Irving. 1 1 3 
 
 remember, came a broad pillar as of gold from the 
 just sinking sun ; burning axle as it were going down 
 to the centre of the world I But we had to beur 
 a hand and get our boat launched, daylight evidently 
 going to end by and by. Kirkcaldy was some five 
 miles off, and probably the tide not in our favour. 
 Gradually the stars came out, and Kirkcaldy crept 
 under its coverlid, showing not itself but its lights. 
 We could still see one another in the fine clear 
 grey, and pulled along what we could. We had no 
 accident ; not the least ill-luck. Donaldson, and 
 perhaps Irving too I now think, wore some air of 
 anxiety. I myself by my folly felt nothing, though 
 I now almost shudder on looking back. We leapt 
 out on Kirkcaldy beach about eleven P.M., and then 
 heard sufficiently what a misery and tremor for us 
 various friends had been in. 
 
 This was the small adventure to Inchkeith. 
 Glen and family returned to Scotland some fifteen 
 years ago ; he had great approval from his public, 
 but died in a year or two, and I had never seen him 
 again. His widow, backed by various Edinburgh 
 testimonials, applied to Lord Aberdeen (Prime 
 Minister) for a small pension on the 'Literary list.' 
 Husband had translated the Bible (or New Testa- 
 ment) into Persic, among other public merits non- 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 Edward Irving. 
 
 literary : and through her son solicited and urged 
 me to help, which I did zealously, and by continual 
 dunning of the Duke of Argyll (whom I did not 
 then personally know and who was very good and 
 patient with me), an annual 501. was at last got ; 
 upon which Mrs. Glen, adding to it some other small 
 resources, could frugally but comfortably live. This 
 must have been in 1853. I remember the young 
 Glen's continual importunity in the midst of my 
 Friedrich incipiencies was not always pleasant, and 
 my chief comfort in it was the pleasure which success 
 would give my mother. Alas, my good mother did 
 hear of it, but pleasure even in this was beyond her 
 in the dark valley she was now travelling ! When 
 she died (Christmas 1853), one of my reflections was : 
 ' Too late for her that little bit of kindness ; my last 
 poor effort, and it came too late.' Young Glen with 
 his too profuse thanks etc. was again rather importu- 
 nate. Poor young soul, he is since dead. His mother 
 appeared in person one morning at my door in 
 Edinburgh (last spring (1866), in those Eector hurries 
 and hurlyburlies now so sad to me); T. Erskine 
 just leading me off somewhither. An aged decent 
 widow, looking kindly on me and modestly thankful ; 
 so changed I could not have recognised a feature of 
 her. How tragic to one is the sight of * old friends ' ;
 
 Edward Irving. 1 1 5 
 
 a thing I always really shrink from. Such nay lot has 
 been! 
 
 Irving's visits and mine to Edinburgh were 
 mostly together, and had always their attraction for 
 us in the meeting with old acquaintance sand objects 
 of interest, but except from the books procured 
 could not be accounted of importance. Our friends 
 were mere ex-students, cleverish people mostly, but of 
 no culture or information ; no aspiration beyond (on 
 the best possible terms) bread and cheese. Their 
 talk in good part was little else than gossip and 
 more or less ingenious giggle. We lived habitually 
 by their means in a kind of Edinburgh element, not 
 in the still baser Kirkcaldy one, and that was all. 
 Irving now and then perhaps called on some city 
 clergyman, but seemed to have little esteem of them 
 by his reports to me afterwards. I myself by this 
 time was indifferent on that head. On one of those 
 visits my last feeble tatter of connection with 
 Divinity Hall affairs or clerical outlooks was allowed 
 to snap itself and fall definitely to the ground. Old 
 Dr. Kitchie ' not at home ' when I called to enter 
 myself. ' Good ! ' answered I ; * let the omen be ful- 
 filled.' Irving on the contrary was being licensed 
 probably through Annan Presbytery ; but I forget 
 the when and where, and indeed conjecture it may 
 i 2
 
 1 1 6 Edward Irving. 
 
 have been before my coming to Kirkcaldy. What 
 alone I well remember is his often and ever notable 
 preaching in those Kirkcaldy years of mine. This 
 gave him an interest in conspicuous clergymen even 
 if stupid which I had not. Stupid those Edinburgh 
 clergy were not all by any means ; but narrow, ig- 
 norant, and barren to us two, they without exception 
 were. 
 
 In Kirkcaldy circles (for poor Kirkcaldy had its 
 circles and even its West-end, much more genial to 
 me than Annan used to be) Irving and I seldom or 
 never met ; he little frequented them, I hardly at all. 
 The one house where I often met him, besides his 
 own, was the Manse, Eev. Mr. Martin's, which was 
 a haunt of his, and where, for his sake partly, I was 
 always welcome. There was a feeble intellectuality 
 current here ; the minister was a precise, innocent, 
 didactic kind of man, and I now and then was willing 
 enough to step in, though various boys and girls 
 went cackling about, and Martin himself was pretty 
 much the only item I really liked. The girls were 
 some of them grown up, not quite ill-looking, atf* 
 all thought to be or thinking themselves * clever and 
 learned ; ' yet even these, strange to say, in the great 
 rarity of the article and my ardent devotion to it, 
 were without charm to me. They were not the best.
 
 Edward Irving. 117 
 
 kind of children ; none of them I used to think quite 
 worthy of such a father. Martin himself had a kind 
 of cheery grace and sociality of way (though much 
 afflicted by dyspepsia) a clear-minded, brotherly, 
 well-intentioned man, and bating a certain glimmer 
 of vanity which always looked through, altogether 
 honest, wholesome as Scotch oatmeal. His wife, 
 who had been a beauty, perhaps a wit, and was now 
 grown a notable manager of house and children, 
 seemed to me always of much inferior type, visibly 
 proud as well as vain, of a snappish rather uncomfort- 
 able manner, betokening, even in her kindness, steady 
 egoism and various splenetic qualities. A big burly 
 brother of hers, a clergyman whom I have seen, a 
 logical enough, sarcastic, swashing kind of man in 
 his sphere, struck me as kneaded out of precisely the 
 same clay. All Martin's children, I used to fancy, 
 had this bad cross in the birth ; it is certain that 
 none of them came to much good. The eldest Miss 
 Martin, perhaps near twenty by this time, was of 
 bouncing, frank, gay manners and talk, studious to 
 be amiable, but never quite satisfactory on the side 
 of genuineness. Something of affected you feared 
 always in these fine spirits and smiling discourses, to 
 which however you answered with smiles. She was 
 v*ery ill-looking withal ; a skin always under blotches
 
 1 1 8 Edward Irving. 
 
 and discolourment ; muddy grey eyes, which for their 
 part never laughed with the other features ; pock- 
 marked, ill- shapen triangular kind of face, with hollow 
 cheeks and long chin ; decidedly unbeautiful as a 
 young woman. In spite of all which (having perhaps 
 the arena much to herself) she had managed to charm 
 poor Irving for the time being, and it was under- 
 stood they were engaged, which unfortunately proved 
 to be the fact. Her maternal ill-qualities came out 
 in her afterwards as a bride (an engaged young lady), 
 and still more strongly as a wife. Poor woman, it 
 was never with her will ; you could perceive she had 
 always her father's strong and true wish to be good, 
 had not her difficulties been quite too strong. But it 
 was and is very visible to me, she (unconsciously for 
 much the greater part) did a good deal aggravate all 
 that was bad in Irving's ' London position,' and im- 
 peded his wise profiting by what was really good in 
 it. Let this be enough said on that subject for the 
 present. 
 
 Irving's preachings as a licentiate (or probationer 
 waiting for fixed appointment) were always interest- 
 ing to whoever had acquaintance with him, especially 
 to me who was his intimate. Mixed with but little 
 of self-comparison or other dangerous ingredient, 
 indeed with loyal recognition on the part of most of
 
 Edward Irving. 1 1 9 
 
 us, and without any grudging or hidden envy, we 
 enjoyed the broad potency of his delineations, ex- 
 hortations, and free flowing eloquences, which had 
 all a manly and original turn ; and then afterwards 
 there was sure to be on the part of the public a 
 great deal of criticising pro and contra, which also 
 had its entertainment for us. From the first Irving 
 read his discourses, but not in a servile manner ; of 
 attitude, gesture, elocution there was no neglect. 
 His voice was very fine ; melodious depth, strength, 
 clearness, its chief characteristics. I have heard 
 more pathetic voices, going more direct to the heart 
 both in the way of indignation and of pity, but re- 
 collect none that better filled the ear. He affected 
 the Miltonic or old English Puritan style, and strove 
 visibly to imitate it more and more till almost the 
 end of his career, when indeed it had become his 
 own, and was the language he used in utmost heat 
 of business for expressing his meaning. At this 
 time and for years afterwards there was something 
 of preconceived intention visible in it, in fact of real 
 affectation, as there could not well help being. To ^ 
 his example also I suppose I owe something of my 
 own poor affectations in that matter, which are now 
 more or less visible to me, much repented of or not. 
 We were all taught at that time by Coleridge etc. that
 
 1 20 Edward Irving. 
 
 the old English dramatists, divines, philosophers, 
 judicious Hooker, Milton, Sir Thomas Browne, were 
 the genuine exemplars, which I also tried to believe, 
 but never rightly could as a whole. The young 
 must learn to speak by imitation of the older who 
 already do it, or have done it. The ultimate rule 
 is : learn so far as possible to be intelligible and 
 transparent no notice taken of your style, but solely 
 of what you express by it. This is your clear rule, 
 and if you have anything which is not quite trivial 
 to express to your contemporaries, you will find such 
 rule a great deal more difficult to follow than many 
 people think. 
 
 On the whole, poor Irving's style was sufficiently 
 surprising to his hidebound public, and this was but 
 a slight circumstance to the novelty of the matter 
 he set forth upon them. Actual practice. * If this 
 thing is true, why not do it ? You had better do it. 
 There will be nothing but misery and ruin in not 
 doing it.' That was the gist and continual purport 
 of all his discoursing, to the astonishment and deep 
 offence of hidebound mankind. There was doubt- 
 less something of rashness in the young Irving's way 
 of preaching ; not perhaps quite enough of pure, 
 complete, and serious conviction (which ought to 
 have lain silent a good while before it took to
 
 Edward Living. 1 2 1 
 
 speaking). In general I own to have felt that there 
 was present a certain inflation or spiritual bombast 
 in much of this, a trifle of unconscious play actor ism 
 (highly unconscious but not quite absent) which had 
 been unavoidable to the brave young prophet and re- 
 former. But brave he was, and bearing full upon the 
 truth if not yet quite attaining it. And as to the 
 offence he gave, our withers were unwrung. I for one 
 was perhaps rather entertained by it, and grinned in 
 secret to think of the hides it was piercing ! Both 
 in Fife and over in Edinburgh, I have known the 
 offence very rampant. Once in Kirkcaldy Kirk, 
 which was well filled and all dead silent under 
 Irving's grand voice, the door of a pew a good way 
 in front of me (ground floor right-hand as you 
 fronted- the preacher), banged suddenly open, and 
 there bolted out of it a middle-aged or elderly little 
 man (an insignificant baker by position), who with 
 long swift strides, and face and big eyes all in wrath, 
 came tramping and sounding along the flags close 
 past my right hand, and vanished out of doors with 
 a slam ; Irving quite victoriously disregarding. I 
 remember the violently angry face well enough, but 
 not the least what the offence could have been. A 
 kind of ' Who are you, sir, that dare to tutor us in 
 that manner, and harrow up our orthodox quiet skin
 
 122 Edward Irving. 
 
 with your novelties ? ' Probably that was all. In 
 Irving's preaching there was present or prefigured 
 generous opulence of ability in all kinds (except 
 perhaps the very highest kind not even prefigured), 
 but much of it was still crude; and this was the 
 reception it had for a good few years to come ; in- 
 deed to the very end he never carried all the world 
 along with him, as some have done with far fewer 
 qualities. 
 
 In vacation time, twice over, I made a walking 
 tour with him. First time I think was to the 
 Trosachs, and home by Loch Lomond, Grreenock, 
 Glasgow, etc., many parts of which are still visible 
 to me. The party generally was to be of four ; one 
 Piers, who was Irving's housemate or even landlord, 
 schoolmaster of Abbotshall, i.e., of ' The Links,' at 
 the southern extra-burghal part of Kirkcaldy, a 
 cheerful scatterbrained creature who went ultimately 
 as preacher or professor of something to the Cape of 
 (rood Hope, and one Brown (James Brown), who had 
 succeeded Irving in Haddington, and was now tutor 
 somewhere. The full rally was not to be till Stirling ; 
 even Piers was gone ahead ; and Irving and I after an 
 official dinner with the burghal dignitaries of Kirk- 
 caldy, who strove to be pleasant, set out together one 
 grey August evening by Forth sands towards Torry-
 
 Edward Irving. 123 
 
 burn. Piers was to have beds ready for us there, 
 and we cheerily walked along our mostly dark and 
 intricate twenty-two miles. But Piers had nothing 
 serviceably ready ; we could not even discover Piers 
 at that dead hour (2 A.M.), and had a good deal of 
 groping and adventuring before a poor inn opened 
 to us with two coarse clean beds in it, in which we 
 instantly fell asleep. Piers did in person rouse us 
 next morning about six, but we concordantly met 
 him with mere ha-ha's ! and inarticulate hootings of 
 satirical rebuke, to such extent that Piers, convicted 
 of nothing but heroic punctuality, flung himself out 
 into the rain again in momentary indignant puff, 
 and strode away for Stirling, where we next saw him 
 after four or five hours. I remember the squalor of 
 our bedroom in the dim rainy light, and how little 
 we cared for it in our opulence of youth. The sight of 
 giant Irving in a shortish shirt on the sanded floor, 
 drinking patiently a large tankard of ' penny whaup ' 
 (the smallest beer in creation) before beginning to 
 dress, is still present to me as comic. Of sublime 
 or tragic, the night before a mysterious great red 
 glow is much more memorable, which had long hung 
 before us in the murky sky, growing gradually 
 brighter and bigger, till at last we found it must be 
 Carron Ironworks, on the other side of Forth, one
 
 1 24 Edward Irving. 
 
 of the most impressive sights. Our march to Stir- 
 ling was under pouring rain for most part, but I 
 recollect enjoying the romance of it ; Kincardine, 
 Culross (Cu'ros), Clackmannan, here they are "then ; 
 what a wonder to be here ! The Links of Forth, 
 the Ochills, Grampians, Forth itself, Stirling, lion- 
 shaped, ahead, like a lion couchant with the castle 
 for his crown ; all this was beautifid in spite of rain. 
 Welcome too was the inside of Stirling, with its fine 
 warm inn and the excellent refection and thorough 
 drying and refitting we got there, Piers and Brown 
 looking pleasantly on. Strolling and sight-seeing, 
 (day now very fine Stirling all washed) till we 
 marched for Doune in the evening (Brig of Teith, 
 'blue and arrowy Teith,' Irving and I took that 
 byway in the dusk) ; breakfast in Callander next 
 morning, and get to Loch Katrine in an hour or two 
 more. I have not been in that region again till 
 August last year, four days of magnificently perfect 
 hospitality with Stirling of Keir. Almost surprising 
 how mournful it was to * look on this picture and on 
 that ' at interval of fifty years. 
 
 Irving was in a sort the captain of our expedition : 
 had been there before, could recommend everything; 
 was made, unjustly by us, responsible for everything. 
 The Trosachs I found really grand and impressive,
 
 Edward Irving. 125 
 
 Loch Katrine exquisitely so (my first taste of the 
 beautiful in scenery). Not so, any of us, the dirty 
 smoky farm hut at the entrance, with no provision 
 in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable whisky, or the 
 1 Mrs. Stewart ' who somewhat royally presided over 
 it, and dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flat- 
 tered like an independency as well as paid like an 
 innkeeper. Poor Irving could not help it; but in 
 fine, the rains, the hardships, the ill diet was begin- 
 ning to act on us all, and I could perceive we were 
 in danger of splitting into two parties. Brown, leader 
 of the Opposition myself considerably flattered by 
 him, though not seduced by him into factious courses, 
 only led to see how strong poor Piers was for the 
 Government interest. This went to no length, never 
 bigger than a summer cloud or the incipiency of one. 
 But Brown in secret would never quite let it die out 
 (a jealous kind of man, I gradually found ; had been 
 much commended to us by Irving, as of superior 
 intellect and honesty ; which qualities I likewise 
 found in him, though with the above abatement), 
 and there were divisions of vote in* the walking 
 parliament, two against two ; and had there not been 
 at this point, by a kind of outward and legitimate 
 reason, which proved very sanatory in the case, an 
 actual division of routes, the folly might have lasted
 
 126 Edward Irving. 
 
 longer and become audible and visible which it 
 never did. Sailing up Loch Katrine in top or un- 
 picturesque part, Irving and Piers settled with us 
 that only we two should go across Loch Lomond, 
 round by Tarbert, Roseneath, Greenock, they mean- 
 while making direct for Paisley country, where they 
 had business. And so on stepping out and paying 
 our boatmen they said adieu, and at once struck 
 leftwards, we going straight ahead ; rendezvous to 
 be at Glasgow again on such and such a day. (What 
 feeble trash is all this. . . . Ah me ! no better than 
 Irving's penny whaup with the gas gone out of it. 
 Stop to-day, October 4, 1866.) 
 
 The heath was bare, trackless, sun going 
 almost down. Brown and I (our friends soon dis- 
 appearing) had an interesting march, good part of it 
 dark, and flavoured just to the right pitch with 
 something of anxiety and something of danger. The 
 sinking sun threw his reflexes on a tame-looking 
 house with many windows some way to our right, the 
 4 Kharrison of Infersnaidt,' an ancient anti-Rob Roy 
 establishment, as two rough Highland wayfarers 
 had lately informed us. Other house or persons we 
 did not see, but made for the shoulder of Ben- 
 lomond and the boatman's hut, partly, I think, by 
 the stars. Boatman and huthold were in bed, but
 
 Edward Irving. 127 
 
 he, with a ragged little sister or wife, cheerfully 
 roused themselves ; cheerfully and for most part in 
 silence, rowed us across (under the spangled vault 
 of midnight ; which, with the lake waters silent as if 
 in deep dream, several miles broad here, had their 
 due impression on us) correctly to Tarbert, a most 
 hospitable, clean, and welcome little country inn 
 (now a huge ' hotel ' I hear, worse luck to it, with 
 its nasty ' Hotel Company limited '). On awakening 
 next morning, I heard from below the sound of a 
 churn ; prophecy of new genuine butter, and even of 
 ditto rustic buttermilk. 
 
 Brown and I did very well on our separate branch 
 of pilgrimage ; pleasant walk and talk down to the 
 west margin of the loch (incomparable among lakes 
 or lochs yet known to me) ; past Smollett's pillar ; 
 emerge on the view of Greenock, on Helensburgh, and 
 across to Koseneath Manse, where with a Eev. Mr. 
 Story, not yet quite inducted, whose * Life ' has since 
 been published, who was an acquaintance of Brown's, 
 we were warmly welcomed and well entertained for 
 a couple of days. Story I never saw again, but he, 
 acquainted in Haddington neighbourhood, saw some 
 time after incidentally a certain bright figure, to 
 whom I am obliged to him at this moment for speak- 
 ing favourably of me. * Talent plenty ; fine vein of
 
 128 Edward Irving. 
 
 satire in him ! ' something like this. I suppose 
 they had been talking of Irving, whom both of them 
 knew and liked well. Her, probably at that time I 
 had still never seen, but she told me long after- 
 wards. 
 
 At Greenock I first saw steamers on the water ; 
 queer little dumpy things with a red sail to each, 
 and legible name, ' Defiance ' and such like, bobbing 
 about there, and making continual passages to Glas- 
 gow as their business. Not till about two years 
 later (1819 if I mistake not), did Forth see a 
 steamer ; Forth's first was far bigger than the 
 Greenock ones, and called itself ' The Tug,' being 
 intended for towing ships in those narrow waters, as 
 I have often seen it doing ; it still, and no rival or 
 congener, till (in 1825) Leith, spurred on by one 
 Bain, a kind of scientific half-pay Master E.N., 
 got up a large finely appointed steamer, or pair of 
 steamers, for London ; which, so successful were they, 
 all ports then set to imitating. London alone still 
 held back for a good few years ; London was notably 
 shy of the steam ship, great as are its doings now 
 in that line. An old friend of mine, the late Mr. 
 Strachey, 1 has told me that in his school days he at 
 
 1 Late Charles Bullet's uncle. Somersetshire gentleman, ex- 
 Indian, died in 1831, an examiner in the India House ; col- 
 league of John S. Mill and his father there.
 
 Edward Irving. 129 
 
 one time early in the Nineties I should guess, say 
 1793 used to see, in crossing Westminster Bridge, 
 a little model steamship paddling to and fro between 
 him and Blackfriars Bridge, with steam funnel, paddle- 
 wheels, and the other outfit, exhibiting and recom- 
 mending itself to London and whatever scientific 
 or other spirit of marine adventure London might 
 have. London entirely dead to the phenomenon, 
 which had to duck under and dive across the Atlantic 
 before London saw it again, when a new generation 
 had risen. The real inventor of steamships, I have 
 learned credibly elsewhere, the maker and proprietor 
 of that fruitless mod el on the Thames, was Mr. Miller, 
 Laird of Dalswinton in Dumfriesshire (Poet Burns' 
 landlord), who spent his life and his estate in that 
 adventure, and is not now to be heard of in those 
 parts ; having had to sell Dalswinton and die quasi- 
 bankrupt (and I should think broken-hearted) after 
 that completing of his painful invention and finding 
 London and mankind dead to it. Miller's assistant 
 and work -hand for many years was John Bell, a joiner 
 in the neighbouring village of Thornhill. Miller 
 being ruined, Bell was out of work and connection : 
 emigrated to New York, and there speaking much 
 of his old master, and glorious unheeded invention 
 well known to Bell in all its outlines or details, at 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 Edward Irving. 
 
 length found one Fulton to listen to him ; and by 
 * Fulton and Bell' (about 1809), an actual packet 
 steamer was got launched, and, lucratively plying 
 on the Hudson Eiver, became the miracle of Yankee- 
 land, and gradually of all lands. These I believe 
 are essentially the facts. Old Eobert M'Queen of 
 Thornhill, Strachey of the India House, and many 
 other bits of good testimony and indication, once far 
 apart, curiously coalescing and corresponding for me. 
 And as, possibly enough, the story is not now known 
 in whole to anybody but myself, it may go in here 
 as a digression a propos of those brisk little 
 Grreenock steamers which I first saw, and still so 
 vividly remember ; little ' Defiance * etc., saucily 
 bounding about with their red sails in the sun, on this 
 my tour with Irving. 
 
 Those old three days at Koseneath are all very vivid 
 to me, and marked in white. The quiet blue moun- 
 tain masses, giant Cobler overhanging, bright seas, 
 bright skies, Roseneath new mansion (still Unfinished 
 and standing as it did), the grand old oaks, and a 
 certain handfast, middle-aged, practical and most 
 polite ' Mr. Campbell ' (the Argyll factor there) and 
 his two sisters, excellent lean old ladies, with their 
 wild Highland accent, wiredrawn but genuine good 
 manners and good principles, and not least their as-
 
 Edward Ir ving. 131 
 
 tonishment, and shrill interjections at once of love 
 and fear, over the talk they contrived to get out of 
 me one evening and perhaps another when we went 
 across to tea ; all this is still pretty to me to remem- 
 ber. They are all dead, the good souls Campbell 
 himself, the Duke told me, died only lately, very 
 old but they were to my rustic eyes of a superior, 
 richly furnished stratum of society ; and the thought 
 that I too might perhaps be ' one and somewhat ' 
 (Eln und Etwas) among my fellow creatures by and 
 by, was secretly very welcome at their hands. We 
 rejoined Irving and Piers at Glasgow ; I remember 
 our glad embarkation towards Paisley by canal track- 
 boat ; visit preappointed for us by Irving, in a good 
 old lady's house, whose son was Irving's boarder ; 
 the dusty, sunny Glasgow evening ; and my friend's 
 joy to see Brown and me. Irving was very good 
 and jocund-hearted : most blithe his good old lady, 
 whom I had seen at Kirkcaldy before. We had a 
 pleasant day or two in those neighbourhoods ; the 
 picturesque, the comic, and the genially common 
 all prettily combining ; particulars now much forgot- 
 ten. Piers went to eastward, Dunse, his native 
 country ; ' born i' Dunse,' equal in sound to born a 
 dunce, as Irving's laugh would sometimes remind 
 him ; * opposition party ' (except it were in the secret 
 K 2
 
 132 Eda'drd Irving. 
 
 of Brown's jealous heart) there was now none ; Irving 
 in truth was the natural king among us, and his 
 qualities of captaincy in such a matter were indis- 
 putable. 
 
 Brown, he, and I went by the Falls of Clyde ; I 
 do not recollect the rest of our route, except that at 
 New Lanark, a green silent valley, with cotton works 
 turned by Clyde waters, we called to see Kobert Owen, 
 the then incipient arch-gomeril, ' model school,' and 
 thought it (and him, whom after all we did not see, 
 and knew only by his pamphlets and it) a thing of 
 wind not worth consideiing farther; and that after 
 sight of the Falls, which probably was next day, 
 Irving came out as captain in a fine new phase. The 
 Falls were very grand and stormful nothing to say 
 against the Falls ; but at the last of them, or pos- 
 sibly at Bothwell Banks farther on, a woman who 
 officiated as guide and cicerone, most superfluous, 
 unwilling too, but firmly persistent in her purpose, 
 happened to be in her worst humour ; did nothing 
 but snap and snarl, and being answered by bits of 
 quiz, towered at length into foam. She intimated 
 she would bring somebody who would ask us how we 
 could so treat an unprotected female, and vanished to 
 seek the champion or champions. As our business 
 was done, and the woman paid too, I own (with shame
 
 Edward Irving. 133 
 
 if needed) my thought would have been to inarch 
 with decent activity on our way, not looking back 
 unless summoned to do it, and prudently evading 
 discrepant circles of that sort. Not so Irving, who 
 drew himself up to his full height and breadth, 
 cudgel in hand, and stood there, flanked by Brown 
 and me, waiting the issue. 
 
 Issue was, a thickish kind of man, seemingly the 
 woman's husband, a little older than any of us, stept 
 out with her, calmly enough surveying, and at a re- 
 spectful distance ; asked if we would buy apples ? 
 Upon which with negatory grin we did march. I recol- 
 lect too that we visited lead-hills and descended into 
 
 * 
 
 the mines ; that Irving prior to Annan must have 
 struck away from us at some point. Brown and I, 
 on arriving at Mainhill, found my dear good mother 
 in the saddest state ; dregs of a bad fever hanging 
 on her ; my profound sorrow at which seemed to be a 
 surprise to Brown, according to his letters afterwards. 
 With Brown, for a year or two ensuing, I continued 
 to have some not unpleasant correspondence ; a con- 
 scientious, accurate, clear-sighted, but rather narrow 
 and unfruitful man, at present tutor to some Lock- 
 hart of Lee, and wintering in Edinburgh. Went 
 afterwards to India as Presbyterian clergyman some- 
 where, and shrank gradually, we heard, into complete
 
 134 Edward Irving. 
 
 aridity, phrenology, etc. etc., and before long died 
 there. He had, after Irving, been my dear little 
 Jeannie's teacher and tutor ; she never had but these 
 two, and the name of her, like a bright object far 
 above me like a star, occasionally came up between 
 them on that journey ; I dare say at other times. 
 She retained a child's regard for James Brown, and 
 in this house he was always a memorable object. 
 
 My second tour with Irving had nothing of cir- 
 cuit in it : a mere walk homeward through the 
 Peebles-Moffat moor country, and is not worth going 
 into in any detail. The region was without roads, 
 often without foot-tracks, had no vestige of an inn, 
 so that there was a kind of knight-errantry in thread- 
 ing your way through it ; not to mention the ro- 
 mance that naturally lay in its Ettrick and Yarrow, 
 and old melodious songs and traditions. We walked 
 up Meggat Water to beyond the sources, emerged into 
 Yarrow not far above St. Mary's Loch; a charming 
 secluded shepherd country, with excellent shepherd 
 population nowhere setting up to be picturesque,but 
 everywhere honest, comely, well done-to, peaceable 
 and useful. Nor anywhere without its solidly charac- 
 teristic features, hills, mountains, clear rushing 
 streams, cosy nooks and homesteads, all of fine rustic 
 type ; and presented to you in natura, not as in a
 
 Edward Irving. 135 
 
 Drury Lane with stage-lights and for a purpose ; 
 the vast and yet not savage solitude as an impressive 
 item, long miles from farm to farm, or even from one 
 shepherd's cottage to another. Ts"o company to you 
 but the rustle of the grass underfoot, the tinkling 
 of the brook, or the voices of innocent primaeval 
 things. I repeatedly walked through that country 
 up to Edinburgh and down by myself in subsequent 
 years, and nowhere remember such affectionate, sad, 
 and thoughtful, and in fact, interesting and salutary 
 journeys. I have had days clear as Italy (as in this 
 Irving case), days moist and dripping, overhung 
 with the infinite of silent grey and perhaps the 
 latter were the preferable in certain moods. You 
 had the world and its waste imbroglios of joy and 
 woe, of light and darkness, to yourself alone. You 
 could strip barefoot if it suited better, carry shoes 
 and socks over shoulder, hung on your stick ; clean 
 shirt and comb were in your pocket; omnia mea 
 mecum porto. You lodged with shepherds who had 
 clean solid cottages ; wholesome eggs, milk, oatbread, 
 porridge, clean blankets to their beds, and a great 
 deal of human sense and unadulterated natural polite- 
 ness. Canty, shrewd and witty fellows, when you 
 set them talking ; knew from their hill tops every 
 bit of country between Forth and Solway, and all
 
 136 Edward Irving. 
 
 the shepherd inhabitants within fifty miles, being a 
 kind of confraterity of shepherds from father to son. 
 No sort of peasant labourers I have ever come across 
 seemed to me so happily situated, morally and phy- 
 sically well-developed, and deserving to be happy, 
 as those shepherds of the Cheviots. fortunatos 
 nimium ! But perhaps it is all altered not a little 
 now, as I sure enough am who speak of it ! 
 
 Irving's course and mine was from bonny Yarrow 
 onwards by Loch Skene and the ' Grey Mare's Tail ' 
 (finest of all cataracts, lonesome, simple, grand, that 
 are now in my memory) down into Moffat dale where 
 we lodged in a shepherd's cottage. Caplegill, old 
 Walter Welsh's farm, must have been near, though 
 I knew not of it then. From the shepherd people 
 came good talk ; Irving skilful to elicit topography ; 
 Poet Hogg (who was then a celebrity), ' Shirra Scott ' 
 (Sir Walter, Sheriff of Selkirkshire, whose borders we 
 had just emerged from) ; then gradually stores of 
 local anecdote, personal history, etc. These good 
 people never once asked us whence, whither, or what 
 are you ? but waited till perhaps it voluntarily came, 
 as generally chanced. Moffat dale with its green 
 holms and hill ranges, 'Correyran Saddle-yoke,' 
 (actual quasi-saddle, you can sit astride anywhere, and 
 a stone dropped from either hand will roll and bound
 
 Edward Irving. 137 
 
 a mile), with its pleasant groves and farmsteads, 
 voiceful limpid waters rushing fast for Annan, all 
 was very beautiful to us ; but what I most remember 
 is Irving's arrival at Mainhill with me to tea, and 
 how between my father and him there was such a 
 mutual recognition. My father had seen Loch Skene, 
 the Grey Mare's Tail, etc. in his youth, and now 
 gave in few words such a picture of it, forty years 
 after sight, as charmed and astonished Irving ; who 
 on his side was equally unlike a common man, de- 
 finitely true, intelligent, frankly courteous, faithful 
 in whatever he spoke about. My father and he saw 
 one another (on similar occasions) twice or thrice 
 again, always with increasing esteem ; and I rather 
 think it was from Irving on this particular occasion 
 that I was first led to compare my father with other 
 men, and see how immensely superior he, altogether 
 unconsciously, was. No intellect equal to his, in 
 certain important respects, have I ever met with in 
 the world. Of my mother, Irving never made any 
 reading for himself, or could well have made, but 
 only through me, and that too he believed in and 
 loved well ; generally all recognising Irving. 
 
 The Kirkcaldy population were a pleasant honest 
 kind of fellow mortals ; something of quietly fruit- 
 ful, of good old Scotch in their works and ways j
 
 138 Edward Irving. 
 
 more vernacular, peaceable, fixed, and almost genial 
 in their mode of life than I had been used to in the 
 Border home-land. Fife generally we liked, those 
 ancient little burghs and sea villages, with their 
 poor little havens, salt pans, and weatherbeaten 
 bits of Cyclopean breakwaters and rude innocent 
 machineries, are still kindly to me to think of. Kirk- 
 caldy itself had many looms, had Baltic trade, had 
 whale-fishery etc. and was a solidly diligent, yet by no 
 means a panting, puffing, or in any way gambling 
 1 Lang Town.' The flaxmill-machinery, I remember, 
 was turned mainly by ivind ; and curious blue painted 
 wheels, with oblique vans (how working I never saw) 
 rose from many roofs for that end. We all, I in par- 
 ticular, always rather liked the people, though from 
 the distance chiefly, chagrined and discouraged by 
 the sad trade one had ! Some hospitable human 
 firesides I found, and these were at intervals a fine 
 little element, but in general we were but onlookers 
 (the one real society our books and our few selves). 
 Not even with the bright ' young ladies ' (which 
 was a sad feature) were we on speaking terms. By 
 far the cleverest and brightest, however, an ex-pupil 
 of Irving's and genealogically and otherwise (being 
 poorish, proud, and well-bred) a kind of alien in the 
 place, I did at last make some acquaintance with
 
 Edward Irving. 139 
 
 (at living's first, I think, though she rarely came 
 thither) ; some acquaintance, and it might easily have 
 been more, had she and her aunt and our economics 
 and other circumstances liked. She was of the 
 fair-complexioned, softly elegant, softly grave, witty 
 and comely type, and had a good deal of graceful- 
 ness, intelligence, and other talent. Irving too, it 
 was sometimes thought, found her very interesting, 
 could the Miss Martin bonds have allowed, which 
 they never would. To me who had only known her 
 for a few months, and who within twelve or fifteen 
 months saw the last of her, she continued for per- 
 haps some three years a figure hanging more or less 
 in my fancy on the usual romantic, or latterly quite 
 elegiac and silent terms, and to this day there is 
 in me a goodwill to her, a candid and gentle pity 
 for her, if needed at all. She was of the Aberdeen- 
 shire Gordons, a far-off Huntly I doubt not ; 
 1 Margaret Gordon,' born I think in New Brunswick, 
 where her father, probably in some official post, had 
 died young and poor. Her accent was prettily 
 English and her voice very fine. An aunt (widow in 
 Fife, childless, with limited resources, but of frugal 
 cultivated turn, a lean, proud elderly dame, once a 
 ' Miss Gordon ' herself, sang Scotch songs beauti- 
 fully, and talked shrewd Aberdeenish in accent and
 
 140 Edward Irving. 
 
 otherwise), had adopted her and brought her hither 
 over seas ; and here as Irving's ex-pupil she now, 
 cheery though with dim outlooks, was. Irving saw 
 her again in Glasgow one summer, touring etc., he 
 himself accompanying joyfully, not joining (so I un- 
 derstood it) the retinue of suitors or potential suitors, 
 rather perhaps indicating gently * No, I must not' 
 for the last time. A year or so after we heard the 
 fair Margaret had married some rich insignificant 
 Aberdeen Mr. Something, who afterwards got into 
 Parliament, thence out to * Nova Scotia ' (or so) as 
 ' Governor,' and I heard of her no more, except that 
 lately she was still living about Aberdeen, childless, 
 as the Dowager Lady, her Mr. Something having got 
 knighted before dying. Poor Margaret ! Speak to 
 her since the 'good-bye then' at Kirkcaldy in 1819 
 I never did or could. I saw her, recognisably to me, 
 here in her London time, twice (1840 or so), once with 
 her maid in Piccadilly, promenading, little altered ; a 
 second time, that same year or ^tiext, on horseback 
 both of us, and meeting in the gate of Hyde Park, 
 when her eyes (but that was all) said to me almost 
 touchingly, ' Yes, yes, that is you.' Enough of that 
 old matter, which but half concerns Irving and is 
 now quite extinct. 
 
 In the space of two years we had all got tired of
 
 Edward Irving. 1 4 1 
 
 schoolmastering and its mean contradictions and 
 poor results : Irving and I quite resolute to give it 
 up for good ; the headlong Piers disinclined for it 
 on the then terms longer, and in the end of 1818 
 we all three went away ; Irving and I to Edinburgh, 
 Piers to his own east country, whom I never saw 
 again with eyes, poor good rattling soul. Irving's 
 outlooks in Edinburgh were not of the best, 
 considerably checkered with dubiety, opposition, 
 and 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 as one item several good 
 hundreds of money to wait upon. My peculium 
 I don't recollect, but it could not have ex- 
 ceeded 100Z. 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 ! 
 
 Irving lived in Bristo Street, more expensive 
 rooms than mine, used to give breakfasts to intel- 
 lectualities he fell in with, I often a guest with them. 
 They were but stupid intellectualities, and the talk
 
 142 Edward Irving. 
 
 I got into there did not please me even then ; 
 though it was well enough received. A visible 
 gloom occasionally hung over Irving, his old strong 
 sunshine only getting out from time to time. He 
 gave lessons in mathematics, once for a while to 
 Captain Basil Hall, who had a kind of thin celebrity 
 then, and did not seem to love too well that small 
 lion or his ways with him. Small lion came to pro- 
 pose forme at one stage; wished me to go out with 
 him ' to Dunglas ' and there do ' lunars ' in his name, 
 he looking on and learning of me what would come 
 of its own will. 'Lunars' meanwhile were to go 
 to the Admiralty, testifying there what a careful 
 studious Captain he was, and help to get him pro- 
 motion, so the little wretch smilingly told me. 
 
 I remember the figure of him in my dim lodging 
 as a gay, crackling, sniggering spectre, one dusk, 
 and endeavouring to seduce my 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. I 
 don't think Irving ever had any other pupil but this
 
 Edward Irving. 1 4 3 
 
 Basil for perhaps a three months. I had not even 
 Basil, though private teaching, to me the poorer, 
 was much the more desirable if it would please to 
 come ; which it generally would not in the least. I 
 was timorously aiming towards ' literature ' too ; 
 thought in audacious moments I might perhaps 
 earn some trifle that way by honest labour to help 
 my finance ; but in that too I was painfully sceptical 
 (talent and opportunity alike doubtful, alike in- 
 credible, to me poor downtrodden soul) and in fact 
 there came little enough of produce or finance to me 
 from that source, and for the first years absolutely 
 none in spite of my diligent and desperate efforts 
 which are sad to me to think of even now. Act I 
 labores ; yes, but of such a futile, dismal lonely, dim 
 and chaotic kind, in a scene all ghastly-chaos to 
 one, sad dim and ugly as the shores of Styx and 
 Phlegethon, as a nightmare-dream, become real! 
 No more of that ; it did not conquer me, or quite 
 kill me, thank God. Irving thought of nothing as 
 ultimate, but a clerical career, obstacles once over- 
 come ; in the meanwhile we heard of robust tem- 
 porary projects. ' Tour to Switzerland,' glacier?, 
 Geneva, ' Lake of Thun,' very grand to think of, was 
 one of them ; none of which took effect. 
 
 I forget how long it was till the then famed Dr.
 
 144 Edward Irving. 
 
 Chalmers, fallen in want of an assistant, cast his 
 eye on Irving. I think it was in the summer fol- 
 lowing our advent to Edinburgh. I heard duly about 
 it, how Kev. Andrew Thomson, famous malleus of 
 theology in that time, had mentioned Irving's name, 
 had engaged to get Chalmers a hearing of him in 
 his (Andrew's) church ; how Chalmers heard incog- 
 nito, and there ensued negotiation. Once I recollect 
 transiently seeing the famed Andrew on occasion of 
 it (something Irving had forgotten with him, and 
 wished me to call for) and what a lean-minded, ira- 
 cund, ignorant kind of man Andrew seemed to me ; 
 also much more vividly, in autumn following, one 
 fine airy October day in Annandale, Irving on foot 
 on his way to Glasgow for a month of actual trial. 
 Had come by Mainhill, and picked me up to walk with 
 him seven or eight miles farther into Dryfe Water 
 (i.e. valley watered by clear swift Dryfe, quasi Drive, 
 so impetuous and swift is it), where was a certain 
 witty comrade of ours, one P'rank Dickson, preacher 
 at once and farmer (only son and heir of his father 
 who had died in that latter capacity). We found 
 Frank I conclude, though the whole is now dim to 
 me, till we arrived all three (Frank and I to set 
 Irving on his road and bid him good speed) on the 
 top of a hill commanding all upper Annandale, and
 
 Edward Irving. 145 
 
 the grand mass of Moffat hills, where we paused 
 thoughtful a few moments. The blue sky was 
 beautifully spotted with white clouds, which and 
 their shadows on the wide landscape, the wind was 
 beautifully chasing. Like life, I said with a kind of 
 emotion, on which Irving silently pressed my arm 
 with the hand near it or perhaps on it, and a 
 moment after, with no word but his < farewell ' and 
 ours, strode swiftly away. A mail coach would find 
 him at Moffat that same evening (after his walk of 
 about thirty miles), and carry him to Glasgow to 
 sleep. And the curtains sink again on Frank and 
 me at this time. 
 
 Frank was a notable kind of man, and one of the 
 memorabilities, to Irving as well as me ; a most 
 quizzing, merry, entertaining, guileless, and nn- 
 malicious man ; with very considerable logic, read- 
 ing, contemptuous observation and intelligence, 
 much real tenderness too, when not obstructed, and a 
 mournful true affection especially for the friends he 
 had lost by death ! No mean impediment there any 
 more (that was it), for Frank was very sensitive, 
 easily moved to something of envy, and as if sur- 
 prised when contempt was not possible ; easy banter 
 was what he habitually dwelt in ; for the rest an 
 honourable, bright, amiable man ; alas, and his end 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 Edv'drd Tn'lnij. 
 
 was very tragic ! I have hardly s 3en a man with 
 more opulence of conversation, wit, fantastic banter- 
 ing, ingenuity, and genial human sense of the 
 ridiculous in men and things. Charles Buller, per- 
 haps, but he was of far more refined, delicately 
 managed, and less copious tone ; finer by nature, 
 I should say, as well as by culture, and had nothing 
 of the fine Annandale Ral/djiis turn which had 
 grown up, partly of will and at length by industry 
 as well, in poor Frank Dickson in the valley of Dryfe 
 amid his little stock of books and rustic phenomena. 
 A slightly built man, nimble-looking and yet lazy- 
 looking, our Annandale Eabelais ; thin, neatly expres- 
 sive aquiline face, grey genially laughing eyes, 
 something sternly serious and resolute in the squar- 
 ish fine brow, nose specially aquiline, thin and rather 
 small. I well remember the play of point and 
 nostrils there, while his wild home-grown Gargan- 
 tuisms went on. He rocked rather, and negligently 
 wriggled in walking or standing, something slightly 
 twisted in the spine, I think ; but he made so much 
 small involuntary tossing and gesticulation while 
 he spoke or listened, you never noticed the twist. 
 What a childlike and yet half imp-like volume of 
 laughter lay in Frank; how he would fling back 
 his fine head, left cheek up, not himself laughing much
 
 Edward Irving. 147 
 
 or loud even, but showing you such continents of 
 inward gleesome mirth and victorious mockery of the 
 dear stupid ones who had crossed his sphere of 
 observation. A wild roll of sombre eloquence lay in 
 him too, and I have seen In his sermons sometimes 
 that brow and aquiline face grow dark, sad, and 
 thunderous like the eagle of Jove. I always liked 
 poor Frank, and he me heartily. After having tried 
 to banter me down and recognised the mistake, 
 which he loyally did for himself and never repeated, 
 we had much pleasant talk together first and last. 
 
 His end was very tragic, like that of a sensitive 
 gifted man too much based on laughter. Having no 
 good prospect of kirk promotion in Scotland (I think 
 his Edinburgh resource had been mainly that of 
 teaching under Mathematical Nichol for certain 
 hours daily), he perhaps about a year after Irving 
 went to Glasgow had accepted some offer to be 
 Presbyterian chaplain and preacher to the Scotch 
 in Bermuda, and lifted anchor thither with many 
 regrets and good wishes from us all. I did not corre- 
 spond with him there, my own mood and posture 
 being so dreary and empty. But before Irving left 
 Glasgow, news came to me (from Irving I believe) 
 that Frank, struck quite miserable and lame of heart 
 and nerves by dyspepsia and dispiritment, was home 
 i, 2
 
 148 Edward Irving. 
 
 again, or on his way home to Dryfesdale, there to 
 lie useless, Irving recommending me to do for him 
 what kindness I could, and not remember that he 
 used to disbelieve and be ignorantly cruel in my own 
 dyspeptic tribulations. This I did not fail of, nor 
 was it burdensome, but otherwise, while near him in 
 Annandale. 
 
 Frank was far more wretched than I had been ; 
 sunk in spiritual dubieties too, which I by that 
 time was getting rid of. He had brought three 
 young Bermuda gentlemen home with him as pupils 
 (had been much a favourite in society there). With 
 these in his rough farm-house, Belkat hill, 1 he 
 settled himself to live. Farm was his, but in the 
 hands of a rough-spun sister and her ploughing 
 husband, who perhaps was not over glad to see 
 Frank return, with new potentiality of ownership 
 if he liked, which truly I suppose he never did. 
 They had done some joinering, plank-flooring in 
 the farm-house, which was weather-tight, newish 
 though strait and dim, and there on rough rustic 
 terms, perhaps with a little disappointment to the 
 young gentlemen, Frank and his Bermudians lived, 
 Frank himself for several years. He had a nimble 
 
 1 Bell Top Hill, near Hook, head part of th pleasant vale of 
 Dryfe.
 
 Edward Irving. 1 49 
 
 quick pony, rode latterly (for the Bermudians did 
 not stay above a year or two) much about among 
 his cousinry of friends, always halting and baiting 
 with me when it could be managed. I had at once 
 gone to visit him, found Bell Top Hill on the new 
 terms as interesting as ever. A comfort to me to 
 administer some comfort, interesting even to compare 
 dyspeptic notes. Besides, Frank by degrees would 
 kindle into the old coruscations, and talk as well as 
 ever. I remember some of those visits to him, still 
 more the lonely silent rides thither, as humanly 
 impressive, wholesome, not unpleasant ; especially 
 after my return from Buller tutorship, and my first 
 London visit (in 1824), when I was at Hoddam Hill, 
 idly high and dry like Frank (or only translating 
 German romance etc.) and had a horse of my own. 
 Frank took considerably to my mother ; talked a 
 great deal of his bitter Byronic scepticism to her, 
 and seemed to feel like oil poured into his wounds 
 her beautifully pious contradictions of him and it. 
 ' Eeally likes to be contradicted, poor Frank ! ' she 
 would tell me afterwards. He might be called a 
 genuine bit of rustic dignity modestly, frugally, 
 in its simplest expression, gliding about among us 
 there. This lasted till perhaps the beginning of 
 1826. I do not remember him at Scotsbrig ever. I
 
 150 Edward Irving. 
 
 suppose the lease of his farm may have run out that 
 year, not renewed, and that he was now farther away. 
 After my marriage, perhaps two years after it, from 
 Craigenputtoch I wrote to him, but never got the 
 least answer, never saw him or distinctly heard of 
 him more. Indistinctly I did, with a shock, hear 
 of him once, and then a second, a final time, thus. 
 My brother Jamie, 1 riding to Moffat in 1828 or so, 
 saw near some poor cottage (not a farm at all, a bare 
 place for a couple of cows, perhaps it was a turnpike- 
 keeper's cottage), not far from Moffat, a forlornly 
 miserable-looking figure, walking languidly to and 
 fro, parted from him by the hedge, whom in spite 
 of this sunk condition he recognised clearly for 
 Frank Dickson, who, however, took no notice of him. 
 * Perhaps refuses to know me,' thought Jamie ; 
 ' they have lost their farm sister and husband seem 
 to have taken shelter here, and there is the poor 
 gentleman and scholar Frank sauntering miserably 
 with an old plaid over his head, slipshod in a pair 
 of old clogs/ That was Jamie's guess, which he 
 reported to me ; and a few months after, grim whis- 
 per came, low but certain no inquest of coroner 
 there that Frank was dead, and had gone in the 
 Roman fashion. What other could he do now the 
 1 Youngest brother, ten years my junior.
 
 Edward Irving. 151 
 
 silent, valiant, though vanquished man ? He was 
 hardly yet thirty-five, a man richer in gifts than 
 nine-tenths of the vocal and notable are. I remem- 
 ber him with sorrow and affection, native-countryman 
 Frank, and his little life. What a strange little 
 island fifty years off; sunny, homelike, pretty in the 
 memory, yet with tragic thunders waiting it ! 
 
 Irving's Glasgow news from the first were good. 
 Approved of, accepted by the great Doctor and his 
 congregation, preaching heartily, labouring with the 
 ' visiting deacons ' (Chalmers's grand parochial anti- 
 pauperism apparatus much an object with the Doctor 
 at this time), seeing and experiencing new things 
 on all hands of him in his new wide element. He 
 came occasionally to Edinburgh on visit. I re- 
 member him as of prosperous aspect ; a little more 
 carefully, more clerically dressed than formerly 
 (ample black frock, a little longer skirted than the 
 secular sort, hat of gravish breadth of brim, all very 
 simple and correct). He would talk about the 
 Glasgow Radical weavers, and their notable receptions 
 of him and utterances to him while visiting their 
 lanes ; was not copious upon his great Chalmers, 
 though friendly in what he did say. All this 
 of his first year must have been in 1820 or late in 
 1819 ; year 1819 comes back into my mind as the
 
 152 Edieard Irvine/. 
 
 year of the Radical ' rising ' in Glasgow ; and the 
 kind of altogether imaginary ' fight ' they attempted 
 on Bonny Muir against the Yeomanry which had 
 assembled from far and wide. A time of great 
 rages and absurd terrors and expectations, a very 
 fierce Radical and anti-Radical time. Edinburgh 
 endlessly agitated by it all round me, not to mention 
 Glasgow in the distance gentry people full of zeal 
 and foolish terror and fury, and looking disgustingly 
 busy and important. Courier hussars would come 
 in from the Glasgow region covered with mud, 
 breathless, for head-quarters, as you took your 
 walk in Princes Street ; and you would hear old 
 powdered gentlemen in silver spectacles talking with 
 low-toned but exultant voice about ' cordon of troops, 
 sir ' as you went along. The mass of the people, not 
 the populace alone, had a quite different feeling, 
 as if the danger from those West-country Radicals 
 was small or imaginary and their grievances dread- 
 fully real ; which was with emphasis my own private 
 notion of it. One bleared Sunday morning, perhaps 
 seven or eight A.M. I had gone out for my walk. At 
 the riding-house in Nicholfon Street was a kind 
 of straggly group, or small crowd, with redcoats 
 interspersed. Coming up I perceived it was the 
 * Lothian Yeomanry,' Mid or East I know not, just
 
 Edward Irving. 153 
 
 getting under way for Glasgow to be part of * the 
 cordon.' I halted a moment. They took their way, 
 very ill ranked, not numerous or very dangerous- 
 looking men of war ; but there rose from the little 
 crowd by way of farewell cheer to them the strangest 
 shout I have heard human throats utter, not very 
 loud, or loud even for the small numbers ; but it 
 said as plain as words, and with infinitely more 
 emphasis of sincerity, ' May the devil go with you, 
 ye peculiarly contemptible and dead to the distresses 
 of your fellow-creatures.' Another morning, months 
 after, spring and sun now come, and the * cordon ' 
 etc. all over, I met an advocate slightly of my 
 acquaintance hurrying along musket in hand to- 
 wards the Links, there to be drilled as item of the 
 ' gentlemen ' volunteers now afoot. ' You should 
 have the like of this ' said he, cheerily patting his 
 musket. * Hm, yes ; but I haven't yet quite settled 
 on which side ' which probably he hoped was quiz, 
 though it really expressed my feeling. Irving too, 
 and all of us juniors, had the same feeling in dif- 
 ferent intensities, and spoken of only to one another; 
 a sense that revolt against such a load of unvera- 
 cities, impostures, and quietly inane formalities 
 would one day become indispensable ; sense which 
 had a kind of rash, false, and quasi-insolent joy
 
 154 Edwa t -d lrvin<j. 
 
 in it ; mutiny, revolt, being a light matter to the 
 young. 
 
 Irving appeared to take great interest in his 
 Glasgow visitings about among these poor weavers 
 and free communings with them as man with man. 
 He was altogether human we heard and could well 
 believe; he broke at once into sociality and frank- 
 ness, would pick a potato from their pot and in 
 eating it get at once into free and kindly terms. 
 ' Peace be with you here ' was his entering salutation 
 one time in some weaving shop which had politely 
 paused and silenced itself on sight of him ; ' peace be 
 with you.' ' Ay, sir, if there's plenty wi't ! ' said 
 an angry little weaver who happened to be on the 
 floor, and who began indignant response and remon- 
 strance to the minister and his fine words. * Quite 
 angry and fiery,' as Irving described him to us ; a 
 fine thoughtful brow, with the veins on it swollen and 
 black, and the eyes under it sparkling and glistening, 
 whom however he succeeded in pacifying, and 
 parting with on soft terms. This was one of his 
 anecdotes to us. I remember that fiery little weaver 
 and his broad brow and swollen veins, a vanished 
 figure of those days, as if I had myself seen him. 
 
 By and by, after repeated invitations, which to 
 me were permissions rather, the time came for my
 
 Edward Irving. 155 
 
 paying a return visit. I well remember tlie first 
 visit and pieces of the others ; probably there were 
 three or even four in all, each of them a real holiday 
 to me. By steamer to Bo'ness and then by canal. 
 Skipper of canal boat and two Glasgow scamps of the 
 period, these are figures of the first voyage ; very 
 vivid these, the rest utterly out. I think I always 
 went by Bo'ness and steam so far, coach the re- 
 mainder of the road in all subsequent journeys. 
 Irving lived in Kent Street, eastern end of Glasgow, 
 ground floor, tolerably spacious room. I think he 
 sometimes gave me up his bedroom (me the bad 
 sleeper) and went out himself to some friend's house. 
 David Hope (cousin of old Adam's, but much younger, 
 an excellent guileless man and merchant) was 
 warmly intimate and attached; the like William 
 Graham, of Burnswark, Annandale, a still more 
 interesting character ; with both of whom I made 
 or renewed acquaintance which turned out to be 
 agreeable and lasting. These two were perhaps 
 Irving's most domestic and practically trusted 
 friends, but he had already many in the better 
 Glasgow circles ; and in generous liking and appre- 
 ciation tended to excess, never to defect, with one 
 and all of them. * Philosophers ' called at Kent 
 Street whom one did not find so extremely philoso-
 
 156 Edward Irving. 
 
 phical, though all were amiable and of polite and 
 partly religious turn ; and in fact these reviews of 
 Glasgow in its streets, in its jolly Christmas dining- 
 rooms and drawing-rooms, were cordial and instructive 
 to me ; the solid style of comfort, freedom, and plenty 
 was new to me in that degree. The Tontine (my 
 first evening in Glasgow) was quite a treat to my 
 rustic eyes ; several hundreds of such fine, clean 
 opulent, and enviable or amiable-looking good Scotch 
 gentlemen sauntering about in trustful gossip or 
 solidly reading their newspapers. I remember the 
 shining bald crowns and serene white heads of several, 
 and the feeling, fortunatos nimium, which they 
 generally gave me. Irving was not with me on this 
 occasion ; had probably left me there for some half- 
 hour, and would come to pick me up again when 
 ready. We made morning calls together too, not 
 very many, and found once, I recollect, an exuberant 
 bevy of young ladies which I (silently) took as sample 
 of great and singular privilege in my friend's way of 
 life. Oftenest it was crotchety, speculative, semi- 
 theological elderly gentlemen whom we met, with 
 curiosity and as yet without weariness on my part, 
 though of course their laughing chatting daughters 
 would have been better. The Glasgow women of 
 the young lady stamp seemed to me well-looking, 
 clever enough, good-humoured : but I noticed (for
 
 Edward Irving. 157 
 
 my own behoof and without prompting of any kind) 
 that they were not so ivell dressed as their Edin- 
 burgh sisters ; something flary, glary, colours too 
 flagrant and ill-assorted, want of the harmonious 
 transitions, neatnesses, and soft Attic art which I 
 now recognised or remembered for the first time. 
 
 Of Dr. Chalmers I heard a great deal ; naturally 
 the continual topic, or one of them ; admiration 
 universal, and as it seemed to me slightly wearisome, 
 and a good deal indiscriminate and overdone, which 
 probably (though we were dead silent on that head) 
 was on occasions Irving's feeling too. But the great 
 man was himself truly lovable, truly loved; and 
 nothing personally could be more modest, intent 
 on his good industries, not on himself or his fame. 
 Twice that I recollect I specially saw him ; once at 
 his own house, to breakfast ; company Irving, one 
 Crosby, a young licentiate, with glaring eyes and no 
 speculation in them, who went afterwards to Bir- 
 mingham, and thirdly myself. It was a cold vile 
 smoky morning ; house and breakfast-room looked 
 their worst in the dismal light. Doctor himself was 
 hospitably kind, but spoke little and engaged none 
 of us in talk. Oftenest, I could see, he was absent, 
 wandering in distant fields of abstruse character, to 
 judge by the sorrowful glaze which came over bis
 
 158 Edward Irving. 
 
 honest eyes and face. I was not ill-pleased to get 
 away, ignotus, from one of whom I had gained no 
 new knowledge. The second time was in a fine 
 drawing-room (a Mr. Parker's) in a rather solemn 
 evening party, where the Doctor, perhaps bored by 
 the secularities and trivialities elsewhere, put his 
 chair beside mine in some clear space of floor, and 
 talked earnestly for a good while on some scheme 
 he had for proving Christianity by its visible fitness 
 for human nature. ' All written in us already,' he 
 said, ' in sympathetic ink. Bible awakens it ; and 
 you can read.' I listened respectfully, not with 
 any real conviction, only with a clear sense of the 
 geniality and goodness of the man. I never saw 
 him again till within a few months of his death, 
 when he called here, and sate with us an hour, very 
 agreeable to her and to me after the long abeyance. 
 She had been with him once on a short tour in the 
 Highlands ; me too he had got an esteem of liked 
 the * Cromwell ' especially, and Cromwell's self ditto, 
 which I heartily reckoned creditable of him. He 
 did not speak of that, nor of the Free Kirk war, 
 though I gave him a chance of that which he soon 
 softly let drop. The now memorablest point to me 
 was of Painter \Vilkie, who had been his familiar in 
 youth, and whom he seemed to me to understand
 
 Edward Irving. 159 
 
 well. * Painter's language,' he said, ' was stinted and 
 difficult.' Wilkie had told him how in painting his 
 Rent Day he thought long, and to no purpose, by 
 what means he should signify that the sorrowful 
 woman with the children there, had left no husband 
 at home, but was a widow under tragical self- 
 management ; till one morning, pushing along the 
 Strand, he met a small artisan family going evidently 
 on excursion, and in one of their hands or pockets 
 somewhere was visible the house-key. ' That will 
 do,' thought Wilkie, and prettily introduced the 
 house-key as coral in the poor baby's mouth, just 
 drawn from poor mammy's pocket, to keep her un- 
 conscious little orphan peaceable. He warmly 
 agreed with me in thinking Wilkie a man of real 
 genius, real vivacity and simplicity. Chalmers was 
 himself very beautiful to us during that hour, grave 
 not too grave earnest, cordial face and figure 
 very little altered, only the head had grown white, 
 and in the eyes and features you could read some- 
 thing of a serene sadness, as if evening and star- 
 crowned night were coming on, and the hot noises 
 of the day growing unexpectedly insignificant to one. 
 We had little thought this would be the last of 
 Chalmers ; but in a few weeks after he suddenly 
 died . . . He was a man of much natural dignity,
 
 1 60 E (heard Irving. 
 
 ingenuity, honesty, and kind affection, as well as 
 sound intellect and imagination. A very eminent 
 vivacity lay in him, which could rise to complete 
 impetuosity (growing conviction, passionate elo- 
 quence, fiery play of heart and head) all in a kind of 
 rustic type, one might say, though wonderfully true 
 and tender. He had a burst of genuine fun too, 1 
 have heard, of the same honest but most plebeian 
 broadly natural character ; his laugh was a hearty 
 low guffaw ; and his tones in preaching would rise 
 to the piercingly pathetic no preacher ever went 
 so into one's heart. He was a man essentially of 
 little culture, of narrow sphere, all his life ; such an 
 intellect professing to be educated, and yet so ill 
 read, so ignorant in all that lay beyond the horizon 
 in place or in time, I have almost nowhere met with. 
 A man capable of much soaking indolence, lazy 
 brooding and do-nothingism, as the first stage of 
 his life well indicated ; a man thought to be timid 
 almost to the verge of cowardice, yet capable of 
 impetuous activity and blazing audacity, as his latter 
 years showed. 
 
 I suppose there will never again be such a 
 preacher in any Christian church. 
 
 [A slip from a newspaper is appended here, 
 with a note to it in Carlyle's hand.
 
 Edward Irving. 1 6 1 
 
 'It is a favourite speculation of mine that if 
 spared to sixty we then enter on the seventh decade 
 of human life, and that this if possible should be 
 turned into the Sabbath of our earthly pilgrimage 
 and spent sabbatically, as if on the shores of an 
 eternal world, or in the outer courts as it were of 
 the temple that is above, the tabernacle in Heaven. 
 What enamours me all the more of this idea is the 
 retrospect of my mother's widowhood. I long, if 
 God should spare me, for such an old age as she en- 
 joyed, spent as if at the gate of heaven, and with such 
 a fund of inward peace and hope as made her nine 
 years' widowhood a perfect feast and foretaste of 
 the blessedness that awaits the righteous.' Dr. 
 Chalmers. 
 
 Carlyle writes : 
 
 * Had heard it before from Thomas Erskine (of 
 Linlathen), with pathetic comment as to what 
 Chalmers's own sabbath-decade had been.'] 
 
 Irving's discourses were far more opulent in 
 ingenious thought than Chalmers's, which indeed 
 were usually the triumphant on-rush of one idea 
 with its satellites and supporters. But Irving's 
 wanted in definite head and backbone, so that on 
 arriving you might see clearly where and how 
 That was mostly a defect one felt in traversing those 
 
 VOL. I, M
 
 1 62 Edward Irving. 
 
 grand forest-avenues of his with their multifarious 
 outlooks to right and left. He had many thoughts 
 pregnantly expressed, but they did not tend all one 
 way. The reason was there were in him infinitely 
 more thoughts than in Chalmers, and he took far less 
 pains in setting them forth. The uniform custom 
 was, he shut himself up all Saturday, became in- 
 visible all that day; and had his sermon ready 
 before going to bed. Sermon an hour long or more ; 
 it could not be done in one day, except as a kind 
 of extempore thing. It flowed along, not as a swift 
 flowing river, but as a broad, deep, and bending 
 or meandering one. Sometimes it left on you 
 the impression almost of a fine noteworthy lake. 
 Noteworthy always ; nobody could mistake it for 
 the discourse of other than an uncommon man. 
 Originality and truth of purpose were undeniable 
 in it, but there was withal, both in the matter and 
 the manner, a something which might be suspected 
 of affectation, a noticeable preference and search 
 for striking quaint and ancient locutions ; a style 
 modelled on the Miltonic old Puritan ; something 
 too in the delivering which seemed elaborate and of 
 forethought, or might be suspected of being so. He 
 (still) always read, but not in the least slavishly ; and 
 made abundant rather strong gesticulations in the
 
 Edward Irving. 163 
 
 right places ; voice one of the finest and powerfullest, 
 but not a power quite on the heart as Chalmers's 
 was, which you felt to be coming direct from the 
 heart. Irving's preaching was accordingly a tiling 
 not above criticism to the Glasgowites, and it got a 
 good deal on friendly terms, as well as admiration 
 plenty, in that tempered form ; not often admiration 
 pure and simple, as was now always Chalmers's lot 
 there. Irving no doubt secretly felt the difference, 
 and could have wished it otherwise ; but the 
 generous heart of him was incapable of envying 
 any human excellence, and instinctively would either 
 bow to it and to the rewards of it withal, or rise to 
 loyal emulation of it and them. He seemed to be 
 much liked by many good people; a fine friendly 
 and wholesome element I thought it for him ; and 
 the criticisms going, in connection with the genuine 
 admiration going, might be taken as handsomely 
 near the mark. 
 
 To me, for his sake, his Grlasgow friends were 
 very good, and I liked their ways (as I might 
 easily do) much better than some I had been used 
 to. A romance of novelty lay in them too. It was 
 the first time I had looked into opulent burgher 
 life in any such completeness and composed solidity 
 as here. We went to Paisley several times, to certain 
 
 H 2
 
 164 Edward Irving. 
 
 1 Carliles ' (so they spelt their name ; Annan people 
 of a century back), rich enough old men of religious 
 moral turn, who received me as ' a cousin ; ' their 
 daughters good if not pretty, and one of the sons 
 (Warrand Curlile, who afterwards became a clergy- 
 man) not quite uninteresting to me for some years 
 coming. He married the youngest sister of 
 Edward Irving, and I think is still preaching some- 
 where in the West Indies. Wife long since died, but 
 one of their sons, ' Gavin Carlile ' (or now Carlyle), 
 a Free Kirk minister here in London, editing his 
 uncle's select works just now (1866). David Hope, 
 of Glasgow, always a little stuck to me afterwards, 
 an innocent cheerful Nathaniel, ever ready to oblige. 
 The like much more emphatically did William 
 Graham of Burnswark, whom I first met in the 
 above city under Irving's auspices, and who might 
 in his way be called a friend both to Irving and me 
 so long as his life lasted, which was thirty odd years 
 longer. Other conquests of mine in Glasgow I don't 
 recollect. Graham of Burnswark perhaps deserves a 
 paragraph. 
 
 Graham was turned of fifty when I first saw 
 him, a lumpish, heavy, but stirring figure ; had got 
 something lamish about one of the knees or ankles 
 which gave a certain rocking motion to his gait ; firm
 
 Edward Irving. 165 
 
 jocund affectionate face, rather reddish with good 
 cheer, eyes big, blue and laughing, nose defaced with 
 snuff, fine bald broad-browed head, ditto almost always 
 with an ugly brown scratch wig. He was free of 
 hand and of heart, laughed with sincerity at not very 
 much of fun, liked widely yet with some selection, 
 and was widely liked. The history of him was curious, 
 His father, first some small farmer in ' Corrie Water ' 
 perhaps, was latterly for many years (I forget whether 
 as farmer or as shepherd, but guess the former) 
 stationary at Burnswark, a notable tabular hill, of 
 no great height, but detached a good way on every 
 side, far seen almost to the shores of Liverpool, 
 indeed commanding all round the whole of that 
 large saucer, fifty to thirty miles in radius, the 
 brother point of which is now called Gretna 
 (' Gretan How,' Big Hollow, at the head of Solway 
 Frith) ; a Burnswark beautiful to look on and much 
 noted from of old. Has a glorious Roman camp on 
 the south flank of it, ' the best preserved in Britain 
 except one ' (says General Roy) ; velvet sward cover- 
 ing the whole, but trenches, prsetorium (three conic 
 mounds) etc. not altered otherwise ; one of the 
 finest limpid wells within it ; and a view to Liver- 
 pool as was said, and into Tynedale, to the Cumber- 
 land and even Yorkshire mountains on the one side,
 
 1 66 Edward Irving. 
 
 and on the other into theMoffat ditto and the Selkirk- 
 shire and Eskdale. 
 
 The name ' Burnswark ' is probably Birrenswark 
 (or fortification work). Three Roman stations, with 
 Carlisle (Caer Lewel, as old as King Solomon) 
 for mother: Netherbie, Middlebie, and Owerbie (or 
 Upperby) in Eskdale. The specific Roman town of 
 Middlebie is about half a mile below the Kirk (i.e. 
 eastward of it) and is called by the country people 
 * the Birrens ' (i.e. the Scrags or Haggles, I should 
 think), a place lying all in dimples and wrinkles, 
 with ruined houses if you dig at all, grassy but in- 
 arable part of which is still kept sacred in lea by 
 ' the Duke ' (of Queensberry, now of Buccleuch 
 and Queensberry) while the rest has been all dag 
 to powder in the last sixty or seventy years by the 
 adjoining little lairds. Many altars, stone figures, 
 tools, axes, etc. were got out of the dug part, and 
 it used to be one of the tasks of my boyhood to 
 try what I could do at reading the inscriptions 
 found there ; which was not much, nor almost ever 
 wholly enough, though the country folk were thank- 
 ful for my little Latin faithfully applied, like the 
 light of a damp windlestraw to them in what was 
 total darkness. The fable went that from Birrens 
 to Birrenswark, two and a half miles, there ran a
 
 Edward Irving 167 
 
 * subterranean passage,' complete tunnel, equal to 
 carts perhaps, but nobody pretended even to have 
 seen a trace of it, or indeed did believe it. 
 
 In my boyhood, passing Birrens for the first 
 time, I noticed a small conduit (cloaca, I suppose) 
 abruptly ending or issuing in the then recent 
 precipice which had been left by those diggers, and 
 recollect nothing more, except my own poor awe 
 and wonder at the strange scene, strange face to 
 face vestige of the vanished aeons. The Caledonian 
 Kailway now screams and shudders over this dug 
 part of Birrens ; William Graham, whom I am ( too 
 idly) writing of, was born at the north-east end of 
 Burnswark, and passed in labour, but in health, fru- 
 gality, and joy, the first twenty-five years of his life. 
 
 Graham's father and mother seem to have been 
 of the best kind of Scottish peasant ; he had brothers 
 two or perhaps three, of whom William was the 
 youngest, who were all respected in their state, and 
 who all successively emigrated to America on the 
 following slight first-cause. John Graham, namely 
 the eldest of the brothers, had been balloted for the 
 Militia (Dumfriesshire Militia), and on private con- 
 sideration with himself preferred expatriation to 
 soldiering, and quietly took ship to push his fortune 
 in the New World instead. John's adventures, which
 
 1 68 Edward Irving. 
 
 probably were rugged enough, are not on record for 
 me ; only that in no great length of time he found 
 something of success, a solid merchant's clerkship 
 or the like, with outlooks towards merchant's business 
 of his own one day ; and invited thither one by one 
 all his brothers to share with him or push like him 
 there. Philadelphia was the place, at least the 
 ultimate place, and the firm of ' Graham Brothers ' 
 gradually rose to be a considerable and well-re- 
 puted house in that city. William, probably some 
 fifteen years junior of John, was the last brother 
 that went; after him their only sister, parents 
 having now died at Burnswark, was sent for also, 
 and kept house for William or for another of the 
 bachelor brothers one at least of them had wedded 
 and has left Pennsylvanian Grahams. William 
 continued bachelor for life ; and this only sister re- 
 turned ultimately to Annandale, and was William's 
 house manager there. I remember her well, one of 
 the amiablest of old maids ; kind, true, modestly 
 polite to the very heart ; and in such a curious style 
 of polite culture ; Pennsylvanian Yankee grafted 
 on Annandale Scotch. Used to ' expect ' instead of 
 'suppose,' would 'guess' now and then, and com- 
 monly said Pastor (which she pronounced ' Paustor ') 
 to signify clergyman or minister.
 
 Edward Irving. 169 
 
 The Graham Brothers house growing more and 
 more prosperous and opulent in Philadelphia, 
 resolved at last to have a branch in Glasgow (year 
 1814 or so) and despatched William thither, whose 
 coming I dimly remember was heard of in Annandale 
 by his triumphant purchase for himself in fee simple 
 of the farm and hill of Burnswark, which happened 
 to come into the market then. His tradings and 
 observations in Glasgow were extensive, not unskil- 
 ful that I heard of, and were well looked on, as he 
 himself still more warmly was, but at length (per- 
 haps a year or more before my first sight of him) 
 some grand cargo from or to Philadelphia, some 
 whole fleet of cargoes, all mostly of the same com- 
 modity, had by sudden change of price during the 
 voyage ruinously misgone, and the fine house of 
 Graham Brothers came to the ground. William 
 was still in the throes of settlement, just about 
 quitting his fine well-appointed mansion in Vincent 
 Street, in a cheerfully stoical humour, and only 
 clinging with invincible tenacity to native Burns- 
 wark, which of course was no longer his except on 
 bond with securities, with interest, etc. all of ex- 
 cessive extent, his friends said, but could not per- 
 suade him, so dear to his heart was that native bit
 
 1 70 Edward Irving. 
 
 of earth, with the fond improvements, planting and 
 the like, which he had begun upon it. 
 
 Poor Graham kept iron hold of Burnswark, 
 ultimately as plain tenant ; good sheep farm at a 
 fair rent; all attempts otherwise, and they were 
 many and strenuous, having issued in non-success, 
 and the hope of ever recovering himself, or it, being 
 plainly futile. Graham never merchanted more ; 
 was once in America on exploratory visit, where 
 his brothers were in some degree set up again, but 
 had no 8,000. to spare for his Burnswark. He still 
 hung a little to Glasgow, tried various things, rather 
 of a 'projector' sort, all of which miscarried, till 
 happily he at length ceased visiting Glasgow, and 
 grew altogether rustic, a successful sheep-farmer at 
 any rate, fat, cheery, happy, and so for his last 
 twenty years rode visiting about among the little 
 lairds of an intelligent turn, who liked him well, 
 but not with entire acquiescence in all the copious 
 quasi-intelligent talk he had. Irving had a real 
 love for him, with silent deductions in the unim- 
 portant respects; he an entire loyalty and heart - 
 devotedness to Irving. Me also he took up in a 
 very warm manner, and for the first few years was 
 really pleasant and of use to me, especially in my 
 then Annandale summers. Through him I made
 
 Edward Irving. 171 
 
 acquaintance with a really intellectual modest circle, 
 or rather pair of people, a Mr. and Mrs. Johnston, 
 at their place called Grange, on the edge of the 
 hill country, seven or eight miles from my father's. 
 Mrs. Johnston was a Glasgow lady, of fine cul- 
 ture, manners, and intellect ; one of the smallest 
 voices, and most delicate, gently smiling figure ; 
 had been in London etc. Her husband was by 
 birth laird of this pretty Grange, and had modestly 
 withdrawn to it, finding merchanthood in Glasgow 
 ruinous to weak health. The elegance, the perfect 
 courtesy, the simple purity and beauty I found in 
 both these good people, was an authentic attraction 
 and profit to rae in those years, and I still remember 
 them and the bright little environment of them, 
 with a kind of pathetic affection. I as good as 
 lost them on my leaving Annandale. Mr. Johnston 
 soon after died ; and with Mrs. Johnston there 
 could only be at rare intervals a flying call, some- 
 times only the attempt at such, which amounted 
 to little. 
 
 Graham also I practically more and more lost 
 from that epoch (1826), ever memorable to me 
 otherwise. He hung about me studiously, 
 and with unabating good-will, on my Annandale 
 visits to my mother, to whom he was ever attentive
 
 172 Edward Irving. 
 
 and respectful for my sake and her own. Dear good 
 mother ! best of mothers ! He pointed out the light 
 of her ' end window,' gable window, one dark night 
 to me, as I convoyed him from Scotsbrig. 'Will 
 there ever be in the world for you a prettier light 
 than that ? ' He was once or more with us at 
 Craigenputtoch, ditto at London, and wrote long 
 letters, not unpleasant to read and burn. But his 
 sphere was shrinking more and more into dark 
 safety and monstrous rusticity, mine the reverse in 
 respect of safety and otherwise nay, at length his 
 faculties were getting hebetated, wrapt in lazy 
 eupeptic fat. The last time I ever, strictly speaking, 
 saw him (for he was grown more completely stupid 
 and oblivious every subsequent time), was at the 
 ending of my mother's funeral (December 1853), day 
 bitterly cold, heart bitterly sad, at the gate of 
 Ecclefechan kirkyard. He was sitting in his gig 
 just about to go, I ready to mount for Scotsbrig, 
 and in a day more for London ; he gazed on me with 
 his big innocent face, big heavy eyes, as if half con- 
 scious, half-frozen in the cold, and we shook hands 
 nearly in silence. 
 
 In the Irving Glasgow time, and for a while 
 afterwards, there went on at Edinburgh too a kind 
 of cheery visiting and messaging from these good
 
 Edward Irving. 173 
 
 Graham-Hope people. I do not recollect the visits 
 as peculiarly successful, none of them except one, 
 which was on occasion of George IV.'s famed ' visit 
 to Edinburgh,' when Graham and Hope (I think 
 both of them together), occupied my rooms with 
 grateful satisfaction. I myself not there. I had 
 grown disgusted with the fulsome ' loyalty 'of all 
 classes in Edinburgh towards this approaching 
 George Fourth visit ; whom though called and 
 reckoned a * king,' I in my private radicalism of 
 mind could consider only as a what shall I call 
 him ? and loyalty was not the feeling I had towards 
 any part of the phenomenon. At length reading 
 one day in a public placard from the magistrates 
 (of which there had been several), that on His 
 Majesty's advent it was expected that everybody 
 would be carefully well-dressed, * black coat and 
 white duck trousers,' if at all convenient, I grum- 
 bled to myself, * scandalous flunkeys ! I, if I were 
 changing my dress at all, should incline rather to be 
 in white coat and black trousers ; ' but resolved 
 rather to quit the city altogether, and be absent 
 and silent in such efflorescence of the flunkeyisms, 
 which I was for a week or more in Annandale, at 
 Kirkchrist with the Churches in Galloway ; ride to 
 Lochinbrack Well by Kenmore Lake etc. how vivid
 
 1 74 Edward It-ring. 
 
 still ! and found all comfortably rolled away at my 
 return to Edinburgh. 
 
 It was in one of those visits by Irving himself, 1 
 without any company, that he took me out to Had- 
 dington (as recorded elsewhere), to what has since 
 been so momentous through all my subsequent life. 
 We walked and talked a good sixteen miles in the 
 sunny summer afternoon. He took me round by 
 Athelstanford (' Elshinford ') parish, where John 
 Home wrote his ' Douglas,' in case of any enthusiasm 
 for Home or it, which I secretly had not. We leapt 
 the solitary kirkyard wall, and found close by us the 
 tombstone of ' old Skirring,' a more remarkable 
 person, author of the strangely vigorous doggrel 
 ballad on ' Preston Pans Battle ' (and the ditto 
 answer to a military challenge which ensued there- 
 upon), ( one of the most athletic and best natured of 
 men,' said his epitaph. This is nearly all I recollect 
 of the journey ; the end of it, and what I saw there, 
 will be memorable to me while life or thought 
 endures. Ah me ! ah me ! I think there had been 
 before this on Irving's own part some movements of 
 negotiation over to Kirkcaldy for release there, and 
 of hinted hope towards Haddington, which was so 
 infinitely miserable ! and something (as I used to 
 
 1 June 1821.
 
 Edward Irving. 175 
 
 gather long afterwards) might have come of it had 
 not Kirkcaldy been so peremptory and stood by its 
 bond (as spoken or as written), ' bond or utter ruin, 
 sir ! ' upon which Irving had honourably submitted 
 and resigned himself. He seemed to be quite com- 
 posed upon the matter by this time. 1 I remember 
 in an inn at Haddington that first night a little 
 passage. We had just seen in the minister's 
 house (whom Irving was to preach for), a certain 
 shining Miss Augusta, tall, shapely, airy, giggly? 
 but a consummate fool, whom I have heard called 
 ' Miss Disgusta ' by the satirical. We were now in 
 our double-bedded room, George Inn, Haddington, 
 stripping, or perhaps each already in his bed, 
 when Irving jocosely said to me, ' What would 
 you take to marry Miss Augusta now ? ' ' Not 
 for an entire and perfect chrysolite the size of 
 this terraqueous globe,' .answered I at once ; with 
 hearty laughter from Irving. * And what would you 
 take to marry Miss Jeannie, think you ? ' ' Hah, I 
 should not be so hard to deal with there I should 
 imagine!' upon which another bit of laugh from 
 Irving, and we composedly went to sleep. I was 
 supremely dyspeptic and out of health during those 
 
 1 Carlyle was mistaken here. Irving's hopes at this time 
 were at their brightest.
 
 176 Edward Irving. 
 
 three or four days, and they were the beginning of a 
 new life to me. 
 
 The notablest passage in my Glasgow visits was 
 probably the year before this Edinburgh-Haddington 
 one on Irving's part. I was about quitting Edinburgh 
 for Annandale, and had come round by Glasgow on 
 the road home. I was utterly out of health as usual, 
 but had otherwise had my enjoyments. We had 
 come to Paisley as finale, and were lodging pleasantly 
 with the Carliles. Warrand Carlile, hearing I had 
 to go by Muirkirk in Ayrshire, and Irving to return 
 to Glasgow, suggested a convoy of me by Irving and 
 himself, furthered by a fine riding horse of War- 
 rand's, on the ride-and-tie principle. Irving had 
 cheerfully consented. 'You and your horse as far 
 as you can ; I will go on to Drumclog Moss with 
 Carlyle ; then turn home for Glasgow in good time, 
 he on to Muirkirk which will be about a like 
 distance for him.' * Done, done ! ' To me of course 
 nothing could be welcomer than this improvised 
 convoy, upon which we entered accordingly; early 
 A.M., a dry brisk April day, and one still full of 
 strange dim interest to me. I never rode and tied 
 (especially with three) before or since, but recollect 
 we had no difficulty with it. 
 
 Warrand had settled that we should breakfast
 
 Edward Irving. 177 
 
 with a Kev. Mr. French some fifteen miles off, 
 after which he and horse would return. I recollect 
 the Mr. French, a fat apoplectic-looking old gentle- 
 man, in a room of very low ceiling, but plentifully 
 furnished with breakfast materials ; who was very 
 kind to us, and seemed glad and ready to be in- 
 vaded in this sudden manner by articulate speaking 
 young men. Good old soul ! I never saw him or 
 heard mention of him again. 
 
 Drumclog Moss (after several hours fallen 
 vacant and wholly dim) is the next object that 
 survives, and Irving and I sitting by ourselves under 
 the silent bright skies among the 'peat-hags' of 
 Drumclog with a world all silent round us. These 
 peat-hags are still pictured in me ; brown bog, all 
 pitted and broken into heathy remnants and bare 
 abrupt wide holes, four or five feet deep, mostly dry 
 at present; a flat wilderness of broken bog, of 
 quagmire not to be trusted (probably wetter in old 
 days there, and wet still in rainy seasons). Clearly a 
 good place for Cameronian preaching, and danger- 
 ously difficult for Cla verse and horse soldiery if the 
 suffering remnant had a few old muskets among 
 them! Scott's novels had given the Claverse 
 skirmish here, which all Scotland knew of already, a 
 double interest in those days. I know not that we 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 1 78 Edward Irving. 
 
 talked much of this ; but we did of many things, 
 perhaps more confidentially than ever before. A 
 colloquy the sum of which is still mournfully beau- 
 tiful to me, though the details are gone. I remem- 
 ber us sitting on the brow of a peat hag, the sun 
 shining, our own voices the one sound. Far, far 
 away to the westward over our brown "horizon, 
 towered up white and visible at the many miles of 
 distance a high irregular pyramid. ' Ailsa Craig,' 
 we at once guessed, and thought of the seas and 
 oceans over yonder. But we did not long dwell on 
 that. We seem to have seen no human creature 
 after French (though of course our very road would 
 have to be enquired after) ; to have had no bother 
 and no need of human assistance or society, not 
 even of refection, French's breakfast perfectly suffic- 
 ing us. The talk had grown ever friendlier, more 
 interesting. At length the declining sun said 
 plainly, you must part. We sauntered slowly into 
 the Grlasgow-Muirkirk highway. Masons were build- 
 ing at a wayside cottage near by, or were packing up 
 on ceasing for the day. We leant our backs to a 
 dry stone fence (* stone dike,' dry stone wall, very 
 common in that country), and looking into the 
 western radiance, continued in talk yet a while, loth 
 both of us to go. It was just here, as the sun
 
 Edward Irving. 1 79 
 
 was sinking, Irving actually drew from me by 
 degrees, in the softest manner, the confession that 
 I did not think as he of the Christian religion, and 
 that it was vain for me to expect I ever could or 
 should. This, if this was so, he had pre-engaged to 
 take well of me, like an elder brother, if I would 
 be frank with him. And right loyally he did so, 
 and to the end of his life we needed no conceal- 
 ments on that head, which was really a step gained. 
 
 The sun was about setting when we turned 
 away each on his own path. Irving would have had 
 a good space further to go than I (as now occurs to 
 me), perhaps fifteen or seventeen miles, and would 
 not be in Kent Street till towards midnight. But 
 he feared no amount of walking, enjoyed it rather, 
 as did I in those young years. I felt sad, but 
 affectionate and good, in my clean, utterly quiet little 
 inn at Muirkirk, which, and my feelings in it, I still 
 well remember. An innocent little Glasgow youth 
 (young bagman on his first journey, I supposed) had 
 talked awhile with me in the otherwise solitary little 
 sitting-room. At parting he shook hands, and with 
 something of sorrow in his tone said, ' Good night, 
 I shall not see you again.' A unique experience of 
 mine in inns. 
 
 I was off next morning by four ' o'clock, Muir- 
 K 2
 
 180 Edward Irc'uuj. 
 
 kirk, except possibly its pillar of furnace smoke, all 
 sleeping round me, concerning which, I remembered 
 in the silence something I had heard from my 
 father in regard to this famed Iron village (famed 
 long before, but still rural, natural, not all in a roar- 
 ing state, which as I imagine, it is now). This is my 
 father's picture of an incident he had got to know 
 and never could forget. On the platform of one 
 of the furnaces a solitary man (stoker if they call 
 him so) was industriously minding his business, now 
 throwing in new fuel and ore, now poking the white- 
 hot molten mass that was already in. A poor old 
 maniac woman silently joined him and looked, whom 
 also he was used to and did not mind. But after a 
 little, his back being towards the furnace mouth, he 
 heard a strange thump or cracking puff; and turn- 
 ing suddenly, the poor old maniac woman was not 
 there, and on advancing to the furnace-edge he saw 
 the figure of her red-hot, semi-transparent, floating 
 as ashes on the fearful element for some moments ! 
 This had printed itself on my father's brain ; 
 twice perhaps I had heard it from him, which was 
 rare, nor will it ever leave my brain either. 
 
 That day was full of mournful interest to me in 
 the waste moors, there in bonny Nithsdale (my first 
 sight of it) in the bright but palish, almost pathetic
 
 Edward Irving. 1 8 1 
 
 sunshine and utter loneliness. At eight P.M. I got 
 well to Dumfries, the longest walk I ever made, 
 fifty-four miles in one day. 
 
 Irving ? s visits to Annandale, one or two every 
 summer, while I spent summers (for cheapness sake 
 and health's sake) in solitude at my father's there, 
 were the sabbath times of the season to me ; by far 
 the beautifullest days, or rather the only beautiful 
 I had ! Unwearied kindness, all that tenderest 
 anxious affection could do, was always mine from my 
 incomparable mother, from my dear brothers, little 
 clever active sisters, and from everyone, brave father 
 in his tacit grim way not at all excepted. There 
 was good talk also ; with mother at evening tea, 
 often on theology (where I did at length contrive, by 
 judicious endeavour, to speak piously and agreeably 
 to one so pious, without un veracity on my part). Nay 
 it was a kind of interesting exercise to wind softly 
 out of those anxious affectionate cavils of her dear 
 heart on such occasions, and get real sympathy, real 
 assent under borrowed forms. Oh, her patience with 
 me ! oh, her never-tiring love ! Blessed be ' poverty ' 
 which was never indigence in any form, and which 
 has made all that tenfold more dear and sacred to me ! 
 With my two eldest brothers also, Alick and John, 
 who were full of ingenuous curiosity, and had (espe-
 
 1 82 J-'chcard Irving. 
 
 cially John) abundant intellect, there was nice 
 talking as we roamed about the fields in gloaming 
 time after their work was done ; and I recollect 
 noticing (though probably it happened various times) 
 that little Jean (' Craw ' as we called her, she alone 
 of us not being blond but blackballed) one of the 
 cleverest children I ever saw (then possibly about 
 six or seven) had joined us for her private behoof, 
 and was assiduously trotting at my knee, cheek, eyes, 
 and ear assiduously turned up to me ! Good little 
 soul ! I thought it and think it very pretty of her. 
 She alone of them had nothing to do with milking ; 
 I suppose her charge would probably be ducks or 
 poultry, all safe to bed now, and was turning her 
 bit of leisure to this account instead of another. She 
 was hardly longer than my leg by the whole head 
 and neck. There was a younger sister (Jenny) who 
 is now in Canada, of far inferior speculative intellect 
 to Jean, but who has proved to have (we used to 
 think), superior housekeeping faculties to hers. 
 The same may be said of Mary the next elder 
 to Jean. Both these, especially Jenny, got hus- 
 bands, and have dexterously and loyally made the 
 most of them and their families and households. 
 Henning, of Hamilton, Canada West ; Austin, of the 
 Gill, Annan, are now the names of these two. Jean 
 is Mrs. Aitken, of Dumfries, still a clever, speculative,
 
 Edward Irving. 183 
 
 ardent, affectionate and discerning woman, but much 
 zersplittert by the cares of life ; zersplittert ; steadily 
 denied acumination or definite consistency and direc- 
 tion to a point ; a * tragedy ' often repeated in this 
 poor world, the more the pity for the world too ! 
 
 All this was something, but in all this I gave 
 more than I got, and it left a sense of isolation, 
 of sadness ; as the rest of my imprisoned life all 
 with emphasis did. I kept daily studious, reading 
 diligently what few books I could get, learning what 
 was possible, German etc. Sometimes Dr. Brewster 
 turned me to account (on most frugal terms always) in 
 wretched little translations, compilations, which were 
 very welcome too, though never other than dreary. 
 Life was all dreary, ( eerie ' (Scottice), tinted with 
 the hues of imprisonment and impossibility ; hope 
 practically not there, only obstinacy, and a grim 
 steadfastness to strive without hope as with. To all 
 which Irving's advent was the pleasant (temporary) 
 contradiction and reversal, like sunrising to night, 
 or impenetrable fog, and its specialities ! The time 
 of his coming, the how and when of his movements 
 and possibilities, were always known to me before- 
 hand. On the set day I started forth better dressed 
 than usual, strode along for Annan which lay plea- 
 santly in sight all the way (seven miles or more 
 from Mainhill). In the woods of Mount Annan I
 
 184 Edicard Irving. 
 
 would probably meet Irving strolling towards me ; 
 and then what a talk for the three miles down that 
 bonny river's bank, no sound but our own voices 
 amid the lullaby of waters and the twittering of 
 birds ! We were sure to have several such walks, 
 whether the first day or not, and I remember none 
 so well as some (chiefly one which is not otherwise of 
 moment) in that fine locality. 
 
 I generally stayed at least one night, on several 
 occasions two or even more, and I remember no 
 visits with as pure and calm a pleasure. Annan was 
 then at its culminating point, a fine, bright, self-con- 
 fident little town (gone now to dimness, to decay, 
 and almost grass on its streets by railway transit). 
 Bits of travelling notabilities were sometimes to be 
 found alighted there. Edinburgh people, Liverpool 
 people, with whom it was interesting for the recluse 
 party to ' measure minds ' for a little, and be on 
 your best behaviour, both as to matter and to 
 manner. Musical Thomson (memorable, more so 
 than venerable, as the publisher of Burns's songs) 
 him I saw one evening, sitting in the reading-room, 
 a clean-brushed, commonplace old gentleman in 
 scratch wig, whom we spoke a few words to and took 
 a good look of. Two young Liverpool brothers, 
 Nelson their name, scholars just out of Oxford, were
 
 Edward Ir ling. 1 8 5 
 
 on visit one time in the Irving circle, specially at 
 Provost Dixon's, Irving's brother-in-law's. These 
 were very interesting to me night after night ; 
 handsome, intelligent, polite young men, and the 
 first of their species I had seen. Dixon's on other 
 occasions was usually my lodging, and Irving's along 
 with me, but would not be on this (had I the least 
 remembrance on that head), except that I seem to 
 have been always beautifully well lodged, and that 
 Mrs. Dixon, Irving's eldest sister, and very like him 
 minus the bad eye, and plus a fine dimple on the 
 bright cheek, was always beneficent and fine to me. 
 Those Nelsons I never saw again, but have heard 
 once in late years that they never did anything, but 
 continued ornamentally lounging with Liverpool as 
 headquarters ; which seemed to be something like 
 the prophecy one might have gathered from those 
 young aspects in the Annandale visit, had one been 
 intent to scan them. A faded Irish dandy once 
 picked up by us is also present ; one fine clear morn- 
 ing Irving and I found this figure lounging about 
 languidly on the streets. Irving made up to him, 
 invited him home to breakfast, and home he 
 politely and languidly went with us ; ' bound for 
 some cattle fair,' he told us, Norwich perhaps, and 
 waiting for some coach ; a parboiled, insipid ' agri-
 
 1 86 Edward Irving. 
 
 cultural dandy ' or old fogie, of Hibernian type ; 
 wore a superfine light green frock, snow-white cor- 
 duroys ; age above fifty, face colourless, crow-footed, 
 feebly conceited ; proved to have nothing in him, but 
 especially nothing bad, and we had been human to 
 him. Breakfast this morning, I remember, was at 
 Mrs. Ferguson's (Irving's third sister ; there were 
 four in all, and there had been three brothers, 
 but were now only two, the youngest and the 
 eldest of the set). Mrs. F.'s breakfast tea was 
 praised by the Hibernian pilgrim and well de- 
 served it. 
 
 Irving was generally happy in those little 
 Annandale * sunny islets ' of his year ; happier 
 perhaps than ever elsewhere All was quietly 
 flourishing in this his natal element ; father's house 
 neat and contented ; ditto ditto, or perhaps bloom- 
 ing out a little farther, those of his daughters, all 
 nestled close to it in place withal ; a very prettily 
 thriving group of things and objects in their limited, 
 in their safe seclusion ; and Irving was silently but 
 visibly in the hearts of all the flower and crowning 
 jewel of it. He was quiet, cheerful, genial. Soul 
 unruffled and clear as a mirror, honestly loving and 
 loved all round. His time too was so short, every 
 moment valuable. Alas, and in so few years after,
 
 Edward Irving. 187 
 
 ruin's ploughshare had run through it all, and it 
 was prophesying to you, * Behold, in a little while 
 the last trace of me will not be here, and I shall 
 have vanished tragically and fled into oblivion and 
 darkness like a bright dream.' As is long since 
 mournfully the fact, when one passes, pilgrim-like, 
 those old houses still standing there, which I have 
 once or twice done. 
 
 Our dialogues did not turn very much or long on 
 personal topics, but wandered wide over the world 
 and its ways new men of the travelling conspicuous 
 sort whom he had seen in Glasgow, new books some- 
 times, my scope being short in that respect; all 
 manner of interesting objects and discoursings ; but 
 to me the personal, when they did come in course, 
 as they were sure to do now and then in fit propor- 
 tion, were naturally the gratefullest of all. Irving's 
 voice was to me one of blessedness and new hope. 
 He would not hear of my gloomy prognostications ; 
 all nonsense that I never should get out of these 
 obstructions and impossibilities; the real impos- 
 sibility was that such a talent etc. should not cut 
 itself clear one day. He was very generous to 
 everybody's ' talent,' especially to mine ; which to 
 myself was balefully dubious, nothing but bare 
 scaffold poles, weatherbeaten corner-pieces of per-
 
 1 88 Edward Irving. 
 
 haps a 'potential talent,' even visible to me. His 
 predictions about what I was to be flew into the 
 completely incredible; and however welcome, I 
 could only rank them as devout imaginations and 
 quiz them away. 'You will see now,' he would say, 
 ' one day we two will shake hands across the brook, 
 you as first in literature, I as first in divinity, 
 and people will say, ' Both these fellows are from 
 Annandale. Where is Annandale ? ' This I have 
 heard him say more than once, always in a laughing 
 way, and with self-mockery enough to save it from 
 being barrenly vain. He was very sanguine, I much 
 the reverse; and had his consciousness of power, 
 and his generous ambitions and forecastings. Never 
 ungenerous, never ignoble ; only an enemy could 
 have called him vain, but perhaps an enemy could 
 or at least would, and occasionally did. His pleasure 
 in being loved by others was very great, and this if 
 you looked well was manifest in him when the case 
 offered ; never more or worse than this in any case, 
 and this too he had well in check at all times. If 
 this was vanity, then he might by some be called a 
 little vain, if not not. To trample on the smallest 
 mortal or be tyrannous even towards the basest of 
 caitiffs was never at any moment Irving's turn. 
 No man that I have known had a sunnier type of
 
 Edward Irving. 1 89 
 
 character, or so little of hatred towards any man or 
 thing. On the whole, less of rage in him than I ever 
 saw combined with such a fund of courage and con- 
 viction. Noble Irving ! he was the faithful elder 
 brother of my life in those years ; generous, wise, 
 beneficent, all his dealings and discoursings with me 
 were. Well may I recollect as blessed things in my 
 existence those Annan and other visits, and feel that 
 beyond all other men he was helpful to me when I 
 most needed help. 
 
 Irving's position at Glasgow, I could dimly 
 perceive, was not without its embarrassments, its dis- 
 couragements ; and evidently enough it was nothing 
 like the ultimatum he was aiming at, in the road to 
 which I suppose he saw the obstructions rather 
 multiplying than decreasing or diminishing. Theo- 
 logical Scotland above all things is dubious and 
 jealous of originality, and Irving's tendency to take a 
 road of his own was becoming daily more indisput- 
 able. He must have been severely tried in the sieve 
 had he continued in Scotland. Whether that might 
 not have brought him out clearer, more pure and 
 victorious in the end, must remain for ever a 
 question. Much suffering and contradiction it would 
 have cost him, mean enough for most part, and 
 possibly with loss of patience, with mutiny etc., for
 
 1 90 Edward Irviny. 
 
 ultimate result, but one may now regret that the 
 experiment was never to be made. 
 
 Of course the invitation to London was infinitely 
 welcome to him, summing up, as it were, all of 
 good that had been in Glasgow (for it was the 
 rumours and reports from Glasgow people that had 
 awakened Hatton Garden to his worth), and promis- 
 ing to shoot him aloft over all that had been 
 obstructive there into wider new elements. The 
 negotiations and correspondings had all passed at a 
 distance from me, but I recollect well our final 
 practical parting on that occasion. A dim night, 
 November or December, between nine and ten, in 
 the coffee-room of the Black Bull Hotel. He was 
 to start by early coach to-morrow. Glad I was 
 bound to be, and in a sense was, but very sad I 
 could not help being. He himself looked hopeful, 
 but was agitated with anxieties too, doubtless with 
 regrets as well ; more clouded with agitation than 
 I had ever seen the fine habitual solar light of him 
 before. I was the last friend he had to take fare- 
 well of. He showed me old Sir Harry MoncriefFs 
 testimonial ; a Reverend Presbyterian Scotch Baronet 
 of venerable quality (the last of his kind), whom I 
 knew well by sight, and by his universal character 
 for integrity, honest orthodoxy, shrewdness, and
 
 Edward Irving. 191 
 
 veracity. Sir Harry testified with brevity, in stiff, 
 firm, ancient hand, several important things on 
 Irving's behalf; and ended by saying, 'All this is 
 my true opinion, and meant to be understood as it 
 is written.' At which we had our bit of approving 
 laugh, and thanks to Sir Harry. Irving did not 
 laugh that night; laughter was not the mood of 
 either of us. I gave him as road companion a 
 bundle of the best cigars (gift of Graham to me) I 
 almost ever had. He had no practice of smoking, 
 but a little by a time, and agreed that on the coach 
 roof, where he was to ride night and day, a cigar now 
 and then might be tried with advantage. Months 
 afterwards I learnt he had begun by losing every cigar 
 of them ; left the whole bundle lying on the seat in 
 the stall of the coffee-room ; this cigar gift being prob- 
 ably our last transaction there. We said farewell ; 
 and I had in some sense, according to my worst 
 anticipations, lost my friend's society (not my friend 
 himself ever), from that time. 
 
 For a long while I saw nothing of Irving after 
 this. Heard in the way of public rumours or more 
 specific report, chiefly from Graham and Hope of 
 Glasgow, how grandly acceptable he had been at 
 Hatton Garden, and what negotiating, deliberating, 
 and contriving had ensued in respect of the impedi-
 
 1 92 Edward Irving. 
 
 merits there (' preacher ignorant of Gaelic ; our 
 fundamental law requires him to preach half the 
 Sunday in that language,' etc.), and how at length 
 all these were got over or tumbled aside, and the 
 matter settled into adjustment. ' Irving, our 
 preacher, tails quails,'' to the huge contentment of 
 his congregation and all onlookers, of which latter 
 were already in London a select class ; the chief 
 religious people getting to be aware that an alto- 
 gether uncommon man had arrived here to speak to 
 them. 
 
 On all these points, and generally on all his 
 experiences in London, glad enough should I have 
 been to hear from him abundantly, but he wrote 
 nothing on such points, nor in fact had I expected 
 anything ; and the truth was, which did a little 
 disappoint me at the time, our regular correspond- 
 ence had here suddenly come to finis\ I was 
 not angry, how could I be ? I made no solicitation 
 or remonstrance, nor was any poor pride kindled 
 (I think), except strictly, and this in silence, so far as 
 was proper for self-defence ; but I was always sorry 
 more or less, and regretted it as a great loss I had 
 by ill-luck undergone. Taken from me by ill-luck ! 
 but then had it not been given me by good ditto ? 
 Peace, and be silent ! In the first month Irving, I
 
 Edward Irving. 193 
 
 doubt not, had intended much correspondence with 
 me, were the hurlyburly done ; but no sooner was 
 it so in some measure, than his flaming popularity 
 had begun, spreading, mounting without limit, and 
 instead of business hurlyburly, there was whirlwind 
 of conflagration. 
 
 Noble, good soul ! In his last weeks of life, look- 
 ing back from that grim shore upon the safe sunny 
 isles and smiling possibilities now for ever far be- 
 hind, he said to Henry Drummond, ' I should have 
 kept Thomas Carlyle closer to me ; his counsel, 
 blame, or praise, was always faithful, and few have 
 such eyes.' These words, the first part of them 
 ipsissima verba, I know to have been verily his. 
 Must not the most blazing indignation (had the 
 least vestige of such been ever in me for one 
 moment) have died almost into tears at the sound 
 of them? Perfect absolution there had long been 
 without enquiring after penitence. My ever- 
 generous, loving, and noble Irving ! . . . 
 
 If in a gloomy moment I had fancied that my 
 friend was lost to me because no letters came from 
 him, I had shining proof to the contrary very 
 soon. It was in these first months of Hatton 
 Garden and its imbroglio of affairs, that he did a 
 most signal benefit to me ; got me appointed tutor 
 
 VOL. i. o 
 
 *
 
 194 Edward Irving. 
 
 and intellectual guide and guardian to the young 
 Charles Buller, and his boy brother, now Sir Arthur, 
 and an elderly ex-Indian of mark. The case had its 
 comic points too, seriously important as it was to 
 me for one. Its pleasant real history is briefly this. 
 Irving's preaching had attracted Mrs. Strachey, wife 
 of a well-known Indian official of Somersetshire 
 kindred, then an * examiner ' in the India House, 
 and a man of real worth, far diverse as his worth 
 and ways were from those of his beautiful, enthusias- 
 tic, and still youngish wife. A bright creature she, 
 given wholly (though there lay silent in her a great 
 deal of fine childlike mirth and of innocent grace 
 and gift) to things sacred and serious, emphatically 
 what the Germans call a schone Seele. She had 
 brought Irving into her circle, found him good and 
 glorious there, almost more than in the pulpit itself ; 
 had been speaking of him to her elder sister, Mrs. 
 Buller (a Calcutta fine lady and princess of the kind 
 worshipped there, a once very beautiful, still very 
 witty, graceful, airy, and ingenuously intelligent 
 woman of the gossamer kind), and had naturally 
 winded up with ' Come and dine with us ; come 
 and see this uncommon man.' Mrs. Buller came, saw 
 (I dare say with much suppressed quizzing and 
 wonder) the uncommon man; took to him. She also 
 in her way recognised, as did her husband too, the
 
 Edward Irving. 195 
 
 robust practical common-sense that was in him ; 
 and after a few meetings began speaking of a 
 domestic intricacy there was with a clever but too 
 mercurial and unmanageable eldest son of hers, 
 whom they knew not what to do with. 
 
 Irviug took sight and survey of this dangerous 
 eldest lad, Charles Buller junior, namely age then 
 about fifteen, honourably done with Harrow some 
 weeks or months ago, still too young for college on his 
 own footing, and very difficult to dispose of. Irving 
 perceived that though perfectly accomplished in 
 what Harrow could give him, this hungry and highly 
 ingenious youth had fed hitherto on Latin and Greek 
 husks, totally unsatisfying to his huge appetite ; 
 that being a young feUow of the keenest sense for 
 everything, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and 
 full of airy ingenuity and fun, he was in the habit 
 in quiet evenings at home of starting theses with his 
 mother in favour of Pierce Eganand < Boxiana,' as if 
 the annals of English boxing were more nutritive to 
 an existing man than those of the Peloponnesian war 
 etc. Against all which etc., as his mother vehemently 
 argued, Charles would stand on the defensive, with 
 such swiftness and ingenuity of fence, that frequently 
 the matter kindled between them ; and both being 
 of hot though most placable temper, one or both 
 o 2
 
 196 Edward Irving. 
 
 grew loud ; and the old gentleman, Charles Buller 
 senior, who was very deaf, striking blindly in at this 
 point would embroil the whole matter into a very 
 bad condition ! Irving's recipe after some con- 
 sideration was, * Send this gifted, unguided youth 
 to Edinburgh College. I know a young man there 
 who could lead him into richer spiritual pastures 
 and take effective charge of him.' Buller thereupon 
 was sent, and his brother Arthur with him ; boarded 
 with a good old Dr. Fleming (in George Square^ 
 then a clergyman of mark : and I (on a salary of 
 2001. a year) duly took charge. This was a most 
 important thing to me in the economies and prac- 
 tical departments of my life, and I owe it wholly to 
 Irving. On this point I always should remember 
 he did * write ' copiously enough to Dr. Fleming 
 and other parties, and stood up in a gallant and 
 grandiloquent way for every claim and right of his 
 * young literary friend,' who had nothing to do but 
 wait silent while everything was being adjusted 
 completely to his wish or beyond it. 
 
 From the first I found my Charles a most man- 
 ageable, intelligent, cheery, and altogether welcome 
 and intelligent phenomenon ; quite a bit of sunshine 
 in my dreary Edinburgh element. I was in waiting 
 for his brother and him when they landed at Flem-
 
 Edward Irving. 197 
 
 ing's. We set instantly out on a walk, round by the 
 foot of Salisbury Crags, up from Holyrood, by the 
 Castle and Law Courts, home again to George 
 Square ; and really I recollect few more pleasant 
 walks in my life ! So all-intelligent, seizing every- 
 thing you said to him with such a recognition ; 
 so loyal-hearted, chivalrous, guileless, so delighted 
 (evidently) with me, as I was with him. Arthur, 
 two years younger, kept mainly silent, being slightly 
 deaf too ; but I could perceive that he also was a fine 
 little fellow, honest, intelligent, and kind, and that 
 apparently I had been much in luck in this didactic 
 adventure, which proved abundantly the fact. The 
 two youths took to me with unhesitating liking, and 
 I to them ; and we never had anything of quarrel 
 or even of weariness and dreariness between us ; 
 such * teaching ' as I never did in any sphere before 
 or since ! Charles, by his qualities, his ingenuous 
 curiosities, his brilliancy of faculty and character, 
 was actually an entertainment to me rather than a 
 labour. If we walked together, which I remember 
 sometimes happening, he was the best company I 
 could find in Edinburgh. I had entered him of 
 Dunbar's, in third Greek class at college. In Greek 
 and Latin, in the former in every respect, he was far 
 my superior ; and I had to prepare my lessons by
 
 198 Edward Irving. 
 
 way of keeping him to his work at Dunbar's. Keep- 
 ing him to work was my one difficulty, if there was 
 one, and my essential function. I tried to guide him 
 into reading, into solid enquiry and reflection. He 
 got some mathematics from me, and might have had 
 more. He got in brief what expansion into such 
 wider fields of intellect and more manful modes 
 of thinking and working, as my poor possibilities 
 could yield him ; and was always generously grate- 
 ful to me afterwards. Friends of mine in a fine 
 frank way, beyond what I could be thought to merit, 
 he, Arthur, and all the family continued till death 
 parted us. 
 
 This of the Bullers was the product for me of 
 Irving's first months in London, begun and got 
 under way in the spring and summer of 1822, which 
 followed our winter parting in the Black Bull Inn. 
 I was already getting my head a little up ; translat- 
 ing * Legendre's Geometry' for Brewster; my outlook 
 somewhat cheerfuller. I still remember a happy 
 forenoon (Sunday, I fear) in which I did a Fifth 
 Book (or complete * doctrine of proportion ') for 
 that work, complete really and lucid, and yet one of 
 the briefest ever known. It was begun and done 
 that forenoon, and I have (except correcting the press 
 next week) never seen it since ; but still feel as if it
 
 Edward Irving. 1 99 
 
 were right enough and felicitous in its kind ! I got 
 only 501. for my entire trouble in that ' Legendre,' 
 and had already ceased to be in the least proud of 
 mathematical prowess ; but it was an honest job of 
 work honestly done, though perhaps for bread and 
 water wages, such an improvement upon wages pro- 
 ducing (in Jean Paul's phrase) only water without 
 the bread ! Towards autumn the Buller family 
 followed to Edinburgh, Mr. and Mrs. B. with a third 
 very small son, Eeginald, who was a curious, ges- 
 ticulating, pen-drawing, etc. little creature, not to be 
 under my charge, but who generally dined with me 
 at luncheon time, and who afterwards turned out a 
 lazy, hebetated fellow, and is now parson of Troston, 
 a fat living in Suffolk. These English or Anglo- 
 Indian gentlefolks were all a new species to me, 
 sufficiently exotic in aspect ; but we recognised each 
 other's quality more and more, and did very well to- 
 gether. They had a house in India Street, saw a 
 great deal of company (of the ex-Indian accidental 
 English gentleman, and native or touring lion genus 
 for which Mrs. B. had a lively appetite). I still 
 lodged in my old half-rural rooms, 3 Moray Place, 
 Pilrig Street ; attended my two pupils during the 
 day hours (lunching with ' Regie ' by way of dinner), 
 and rather seldom, yet to my own taste amply often
 
 2oo Edward Irving. 
 
 enough, was of the ( state dinners ; ' but walked 
 home to my books and to my brother John, who was 
 now lodging with me and attending college. Except 
 for dyspepsia I could have been extremely content, 
 but that did dismally forbid me now and afterwards ! 
 Irving and other friends always treated the * ill- 
 health ' item as a light matter which would soon 
 vanish from the account ; but I had a presentiment 
 that it would stay there, and be the Old Man of the 
 Sea to me through life, as it has too tragically done, 
 and will do to the end. Woe on it, and not for my 
 own poor sake alone ; and yet perhaps a benefit has 
 been in it, priceless though hideously painful ! 
 
 Of Irving in these two years I recollect almost 
 nothing personal, though all round I heard a great 
 deal of him ; and he must have been in my company 
 at least once prior to the advent of the elder Bullers, 
 and been giving me counsel and light on the matter ; 
 for I recollect his telling me of Mrs. Buller (having 
 no doubt portrayed Mr. Buller to me in acceptable 
 and clearly intelligible lineaments) that she she 
 too, was a worthy, honourable, and quick-sighted 
 lady, but not without fine-ladyisms, crotchets, caprices, 
 * somewhat like Mrs. Welsh, 1 you can fancy, but 
 
 1 Mrs. Welsh of Haddington, mother of Jane Welsh, afterwards 
 Mrs. Carlyle.
 
 Edward Irving. 201 
 
 good too, like her.' Ah me ! this I perfectly remem- 
 ber, this and nothing more, of those Irving inter- 
 courses ; and it is a memento to me of a most impor- 
 tant province in my poor world at that time ! I was in 
 constant correspondence (weekly or oftener sending 
 books etc. etc.) with Haddington, and heard often of 
 Irving, and of things far more interesting to me 
 from that quarter. Gone silent, closed for ever 
 so sad, so strange it all is now ! Irving, I think, had 
 paid a visit there, and had certainly sent letters ; by 
 the above token I too must have seen him at least 
 once. All this was in his first London year, or 
 half-year, some months before his ' popularity ' had 
 yet taken /ire, and made him for a time the property 
 of all the world rather than of his friends. 
 
 The news of this latter event, which came in 
 vague, vast, fitful, and decidedly fuliginous forms, 
 was not quite welcome to any of us, perhaps in secret 
 not welcome at all. People have their envies, their 
 pitiful self-comparisons, and feel obliged sometimes to 
 profess from the teeth outwards more ' joy ' than they 
 really have; not an agreeable duty or quasi-duty 
 laid on one. For myself I can say that there was 
 first something of real joy ; (' success to the worthy 
 of success ') ; second, something, probably not yet 
 much, of honest question for his sake, ' Can he guide
 
 202 Edward Irving. 
 
 it in that huge element, as e.g. Chalmers has done in 
 this smaller one ? ' and third, a noticeable quantity of 
 Quid tui interest ? What business hast thou with it, 
 poor, suffering, handcuffed wretch ? To me these 
 great doings in Hatton Garden came only on wings of 
 rumour, the exact nature of them uncertain. To me 
 for many months back Irving had fallen totally silent, 
 and this seemed a seal to its being a permanent silence. 
 I had been growing steadily worse in health too, and 
 was in habitual wretchedness, ready to say, * Well, 
 whoever is happy and gaining victory, thou art and 
 art like to be very miserable, and to gain none at all.' 
 These were, so far as I can now read, honestly my 
 feelings on the matter. My love to Irving, now that 
 I look at it across those temporary vapours, had not 
 abated, never did abate: but he seemed for the 
 present flown (or mounted if that was it) far away 
 from me, and I could only say to myself, f Well, well 
 then, so it must be.' 
 
 One heard too, often enough, that in Irving there 
 was visible a certain joyancy and frankness of triumph ; 
 that he took things on the high key and nothing 
 doubting; and foolish stories circulated about his 
 lofty sayings, sublimities of manner, and the like : 
 something of which I could believe (and yet kindly 
 interpret too) ; all which might have been, though it 
 scarcely was, some consolation for our present silence
 
 Edward Irving. 203 
 
 towards one another. For what could I have said in 
 the circumstances that would have been on both sides 
 agreeable and profitable ? 
 
 It was not till late in autumn 1823, nearly two 
 years after our parting in the Black Bull Inn, that I 
 fairly, and to a still memorable measure, saw Irving 
 again. He was on his marriage jaunt, Miss Martin 
 of Kirkcaldy now become his life-partner ; off on a 
 tour to the Highlands ; and the generous soul had 
 determined to pass near Kinnaird (right bank of Tay, 
 a mile below the junction of Tummel and Tay) where 
 I then was with the Bullers, and pick me up to ac- 
 company as far as I would. I forget where or how 
 our meeting was (at Dunkeld probably). I seem to 
 have lodged with them two nights in successive 
 inns, and certainly parted from them at Taymouth, 
 Sunday afternoon, where my horse by some means 
 must have been waiting for me. I remember baiting 
 him ! at Aberfeldy, and to have sate in a kindly 
 and polite yet very huggermugger cottage, among 
 good peasant kirk-people, refreshing themselves, re- 
 turning home from sermon; sate for perhaps some two 
 hours, till poor Dolph got rested and refected like 
 his fellow-creatures there. I even remember some- 
 
 1 Excellent cob or pony Dolph, i.e. Bardolph, bought for me 
 at Lilliesleaf fair by my dear brother Alick, and which I had 
 ridden into the Highlands for health.
 
 2O4 Edward Irving. 
 
 thing like a fraction of scrag of mutton and potatoes 
 eaten by myself in strange contrast, had I thought 
 of that, to Irving's nearly simultaneous dinner which 
 would be with my Lord at Taymouth Castle. After 
 Aberfeldy cottage the curtain falls. 
 
 Irving, on this his wedding jaunt, seemed super- 
 latively happy, as was natural to the occasion, or more 
 than natural, as if at the top of Fortune's wheel, 
 and in a sense (a generous sense it must be owned, 
 and not a tyrannous in any measure) striking the 
 stars with his sublime head. Mrs. I. was demure 
 and quiet, though doubtless not less happy at heart, 
 really comely in her behaviour. In the least beautiful 
 she never could be ; but Irving had loyally taken 
 her as the consummate flower of all his victory in 
 the world poor good tragic woman better probably 
 than the fortune she had after all. 
 
 My friend was kind to me as possible, and bore 
 with my gloomy humours (for I was ill and miserable 
 to a degree), nay perhaps as foil to the radiancy of 
 his own sunshine he almost enjoyed them. I re- 
 member jovial bursts of laughter from him at my 
 surly sarcastic and dyspeptic utterances. * Doesn't 
 this subdue you, Carlyle ? ' said he somewhat solemnly : 
 we were all three standing at the Falls of Aberfeldy 
 (amid the ' Birks ' of ditto, and memories of song)
 
 Edward Irving. 205 
 
 silent in the October dusk, perhaps with moon rising 
 our ten miles to Taymouth still ahead ' Doesn't 
 this subdue you ? ' ' Subdue me ? I should hope not. 
 I have quite other things to front with defiance in 
 this world than a gush of bog-water tumbling over 
 crags as here ! ' which produced a joyous and really 
 kind laugh from him as sole answer. He had much 
 to tell me of London, of its fine literary possibilities 
 for a man, of its literary stars, whom he had seen or 
 knew of, Coleridge in particular, who was in the 
 former category, a marvellous sage and man ; Hazlitt, 
 who was in the latter, a fine talent too, but tending 
 towards scamphood; was at the Fonthill Abbey sale, 
 the other week, 'hired to attend as a lohite bonnet 
 there,' said he with a laugh. White bonnet intensely 
 vernacular, is the Annandale name for a false bidder 
 merely appointed to raise prices, works so for his five 
 shillings at some poor little Annandale roup ' of stand- 
 ing crop or hypothecate cottage furniture, and the 
 contrast and yet kinship between these little things 
 and the Fonthill great one was ludicrous enough. He 
 would not hear of ill-health being any hindrance to me ; 
 he had himself no experience in that sad province. 
 All seemed possible to him, all was joyful and running 
 upon wheels. He had suffered much angry criticism 
 1 Buf, or vocal sale.
 
 206 Edward Irving. 
 
 in his late triumphs (on his ' Orations ' quite lately), 
 but seemed to accept it all with jocund mockery, as 
 something harmless and beneath him. 
 
 Wilson in ' Blackwood ' had been very scornful and 
 done his bitterly enough disobliging best. Never- 
 theless Irving now advising with me about some 
 detail of our motions, or of my own, and finding I 
 still demurred to it, said with true radiancy of look, 
 
 * Come now, you know I am the judicious Hooker,' 
 which was considered one of Wilson's cruellest hits 
 in that Blackwood article. To myself I remember 
 his answering, in return evidently for some criticism 
 of my own on the orations which was not so laudatory 
 as required, but of which I recollect nothing farther, 
 
 * Well, Carlyle, I am glad to hear you say all that ; it 
 gives me the opinion of another mind on the thing ; ' 
 which at least beyond any doubt it did. He was in 
 high sunny humour, good Irving. There was no 
 trace of anger left in him, he was jovial, riant, jocose 
 rather than serious, throughout, which was a new 
 phasis to me. And furthermore in the serious vein 
 itself there was oftenest something of falsetto 
 noticeable (as in that of the waterfall 'subduing' one), 
 generally speaking a new height of self-consciousness 
 not yet sure of the manner and carriage that was 
 suitablest for it. He affected to feel his popularity
 
 Edward Irving. 207 
 
 too great and burdensome; spoke much about a 
 Mrs. Basil Montague ; elderly, sage, lofty, whom we 
 got to know afterwards, and to call by his name for 
 her, ( the noble lady ; ' who had saved him greatly from 
 the dashing floods of that tumultuous and unstable 
 element, hidden him away from it once and again ; 
 done kind ministrations, spread sofas for him, and 
 taught him ' to rest.' The last thing I recollect of him 
 was on our coming out from Taymouth Kirk (kirk, 
 congregation, minister, utterly erased from me), how 
 in coming down the broadish little street, he pulled 
 off his big broad hat, and. walked, looking mostly to 
 the sky, with his fleece of copious coal-black hair flow- 
 ing in the wind, and in some spittings of rain that 
 were beginning ; how thereupon in a minute or two 
 a livery servant ran up, i Please sir, aren't you the 
 Eev. Edward Irving ? ' ' Yes.' * Then my Lord Bread- 
 albane begs you to stop for him one moment.' 
 Whereupon exit flunkey. Irving turning to us with 
 what look of sorrow he could, and * Again found out ! ' 
 upon which the old Lord came up, 1 and civilly in- 
 vited him to dinner. Him and party, I suppose ; 
 but to me there was no temptation, or on those terms 
 less than none. So I had Bardolph saddled and rode 
 
 1 Father of the last, or later, Free Kirk one, wliom I have 
 sometimes seen.
 
 208 Edward Irving. 
 
 for Aberfeldy as above said ; home, sunk in manifold 
 murky reflections now lost to me ; and of which 
 only the fewest and friendliest were comfortably fit 
 for uttering to the Bullers next day. I saw no more 
 of Irving for this time. But he had been at Had- 
 dington too, was perhaps again corresponding a little 
 there, and I heard occasionally of him in the beau- 
 tiful bright and kindly quizzing style that was 
 natural there. 
 
 I was myself writing * Schiller ' in those months ; 
 a task Irving had encouraged me in and prepared 
 the way for, in the ' London Magazine ' Three 
 successive parts there were, I know not how far 
 advanced, at this period; know only that I was 
 nightly working at the thing in a serious sad and 
 totally solitary way. My two rooms were in the 
 old ' Mansion ' of Kinnaird, some three or four 
 hundred yards from the new, and on a lower level, 
 over-shadowed with wood. Thither I always retired 
 directly after tea, and for most part had the edifice 
 all to myself; good candles, good wood fire, place 
 dry enough, tolerably clean, and such silence and 
 total absence of company, good or bad, as I never 
 experienced before or since. I remember still the 
 grand sough of those woods ; or, perhaps, in the 
 stillest times, the distant ripple of Tay. Nothing
 
 Edward Irving. 209 
 
 else to converse with but this and my own thoughts, 
 which never for a moment pretended to be joyful, 
 and were sometimes pathetically sad. I was in the 
 miserablest dyspeptic health, uncertain whether I 
 ought not to quit on that account, and at times 
 almost resolving to do it ; driven far away from all 
 my loved ones. My poor ' Schiller,' nothing consider- 
 able of a work even to my own judgment, had to be 
 steadily persisted in as the only protection and 
 resource in this inarticulate huge * wilderness,' 
 actual and symbolical. My editor, I think, was 
 complimentary ; but I knew better. The ' Times ' 
 newspaper once brought me, without commentary 
 at all, an < eloquent ' passage reprinted (about the 
 tragedy of noble literary life), which I remember to 
 have read with more pleasure in this utter isola- 
 tion, and as the * first * public nod of approval I 
 had ever had, than any criticism or laudation that has 
 ever come to me since. For about two hours it had 
 lighted in the desolation of my inner man a strange 
 little glow of illumination ; but here too, on reflec- 
 tion, I ' knew better,' and the winter afternoon was 
 not over when I saw clearly how very small this con- 
 quest was, and things were in their statu quo again. 
 
 * Schiller ' done, I began * Wilhelm Meister,' a 
 task I liked perhaps rather better, too scanty as my 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 2io Edward Irving. 
 
 knowledge of the element, and even of the language, 
 still was. Two years before I had at length, after 
 some repulsions, got into the heart of ' Wilhelm 
 Meister,' and eagerly read it through ; my sally out, 
 after finishing, along the vacant streets of Edin- 
 burgh, a windless, Scotch-misty Saturday night, is 
 still vivid to me. ' Grand, surely, harmoniously 
 built together, far seeing, wise and true. When, 
 for many years, or almost in my whole life before, 
 have I read such a book ? ' Which I was now, really 
 in part as a kind of duty, conscientiously translating 
 for my countrymen, if they would read it as a 
 select few of them have ever since kept doing. 
 
 I finished it the next spring, not at Kinnaird 
 but at Mainhill. A month or two there with my 
 best of nurses and of hostesses my mother ; 
 blessed voiceless or low-voiced time, still sweet 
 to me ; with London now silently ahead, and the 
 Bullers there, or to be there. Of Kinnaird life 
 they had now had enough, and of my miserable 
 health far more than enough some time before ! 
 But that is not my subject here. I had ridden to 
 Edinburgh, there to consult a doctor, having at last 
 reduced my complexities to a single question. Is 
 this disease curable by medicine, or is it chronic, 
 incurable except by regimen, if even so ? This
 
 Edward Irving. in 
 
 question I earnestly put ; got response, ' It is all 
 tobacco, sir; give up tobacco.' Gave it instantly 
 and strictly up. Found, after long months, that I 
 might as well have ridden sixty miles in the oppo- 
 site direction, and poured my sorrows into the long 
 hairy ear of the first jackass I came upon, as into this 
 select medical man's, whose name I will not mention. 
 
 After these still months at Mainhill, my printing 
 at Edinburgh was all finished, and I went thither 
 with my preface in my pocket ; finished that and 
 the rest of the 'Meister' business (1801. of pay- 
 ment the choicest part of it !) rapidly off ; made a 
 visit to Haddington ; what a retrospect to me, now 
 encircled by the silences and the eternities ; most 
 beautiful, most sad ! I remember the * gimp bonnet ' 
 she wore, and her anxious silent thoughts, and my 
 own ; mutually legible, both of them, in part ; my 
 own little . darling now at rest, and far away! 
 which was the last thing in Scotland. Of the 
 Leith smack, every figure and event in which is 
 curiously present, though so unimportant, I will say 
 nothing ; only that we entered London Kiver on a 
 beautiful June morning ; scene very impressive to 
 me, and still very vivid in me ; and that, soon after 
 midday, I landed safe in Irving's, as appointed. 
 
 Irving lived in Myddelton Terrace, hodie Myd- 
 p 2
 
 2 1 2 Edward Irving. 
 
 delton Square, Islington, No. 4. It was a new 
 place ; houses bright and smart, but inwardly bad, 
 as usual. Only one side of the now square was 
 built the western side which has its back to- 
 wards Battle Bridge region. Irving's house was 
 fourth from the northern end of that, which, of 
 course, had its left hand on the New Eoad. The 
 place was airy, not uncheerful. Our chief prospect 
 from the front was a good space of green ground, 
 and in it, on the hither edge of it, the big open 
 reservoir of Myddelton's 'New River,' now above 
 two centuries old for that matter, but recently made 
 new again, and all cased in tight masonry ; on the 
 spacious expanse of smooth flags surrounding which 
 it was pleasant on fine mornings to take an early 
 promenade, with the free sky overhead and the 
 New Eoad with its lively traffic and vehiculation 
 seven or eight good yards below our level. I re- 
 member several pretty strolls here, ourselves two, 
 while breakfast was getting ready close by ; and the 
 esplanade, a high little island, lifted free out of the 
 noises and jostlings, was all our own. 
 
 Irving had received me with the old true friend- 
 liness ; wife and household eager to imitate him 
 therein. I seem to have stayed a good two or three 
 weeks with them at that time. Buller arrange-
 
 JZdward Irving. 2 1 3 
 
 ments not yet ready ; nay, sometimes threatening 
 to become uncertain altogether ! and off and on 
 during the next ten months I saw a great deal of 
 my old friend and his new affairs and posture. That 
 first afternoon, with its curious phenomena, is still 
 very lively in me. Basil Montague's eldest son, 1 
 Mr. Montague junior, accidental guest at our neat 
 little early dinner, my first specimen of the Lon- 
 don dandy broken dandy ; very mild of man- 
 ner, who went all to shivers, and died miserable 
 soon after. This was novelty first. Then, during 
 or before his stay with us, dash of a brave carriage 
 driving up, and ntry of a strangely-complexioned 
 young lady, with soft brown eyes and floods of 
 bronze red hair, really a pretty-looking, smiling, 
 and amiable, though most foreign bit of magnifi- 
 cence and kindly splendour, whom they welcomed 
 by the name of l dear Kitty.' Kitty Kirkpatrick, 
 Charles Buller's cousin or half-cousin, Mrs. Stra- 
 chey's full cousin, with whom she lived ; her birth, 
 as I afterwards found, an Indian romance, mother 
 a sublime Begum, father a ditto English official, 
 mutually adoring, wedding, living withdrawn in 
 
 1 Noble lady's step-son. She was Basil's third wife, and had 
 four kinds of children at home a most sad miscellany, as I after- 
 wards found.
 
 214 Edward Irving. 
 
 their own private paradise, romance famous in the 
 East. A very singular ' dear Kitty,' who seemed 
 bashful withal, and soon went away, twitching off 
 in the lobby, as I could notice not without wonder, 
 the loose label which was sticking to my trunk or 
 bag, still there as she tripped past, and carrying it 
 off in her pretty hand. With what imaginable 
 object then, in heaven's name ? To show it to Mrs. 
 Strachey I afterwards guessed, to whom privately 
 poor I had been prophesied of in the most grandilo- 
 quent terms. This might be called novelty second, 
 if not first, and far greatest. Then after dinner in 
 the drawing-room, which was prettily furnished, the 
 romance of said furnishing, which had all been 
 done as if by beneficent fairies in some temporary 
 absence of the owners. ' We had decided on not 
 furnishing it,' Irving told me, ' not till we had more 
 money ready ; and on our return this was how we 
 found it. The people here are of a nobleness you 
 have never before seen.' * And don't you yet guess 
 at all who can have done it ? ' * H'm, perhaps we 
 guess vaguely, but it is their secret, and we should 
 not break it against their will.' It turned out to 
 have been Mrs. Strachey and dear Kitty, both of 
 whom were rich and openhanded, that had done this 
 tine stroke of art magic, one of the many munifi-
 
 Edward Irving. 2 1 5 
 
 cences achieved by them in this new province. 
 Perhaps the * noble lady ' had at first been sus- 
 pected, but how innocently she ! Not flush in that 
 way at all, though notably so in others ! The talk 
 about these and other noble souls and new pheno- 
 mena, strange to me and half incredible in such 
 interpretation, left me wondering and confusedly 
 guessing over the much that I had heard and seen 
 this day. 
 
 Irving's London element and mode of existence 
 had its questionable aspects from the first ; and one 
 could easily perceive, here as elsewhere, that the 
 ideal of fancy and the actual of fact were two very 
 different things. It was as the former that my 
 friend, according to old habit, strove to represent it 
 to himself, and to make it be ; and it was as the 
 latter that it obstinately continued being! There 
 were beautiful items in his present scene of life; 
 but a great majority which, under specious figure, 
 were intrinsically poor, vulgar, and importunate, 
 and introduced largely into one's existence the cha- 
 racter of huggermugger, not of greatness or suc- 
 cess in any real sense. 
 
 He was inwardly, I could observe, nothing like 
 so happy as in old days ; inwardly confused, anxious, 
 dissatisfied ; though as it were denying it to him-
 
 2i6 Edward Irving. 
 
 self, and striving, if not to talk big, which he hardly 
 ever did, to think big upon all this. We had 
 many strolls together, no doubt much dialogue, but 
 it has nearly all gone from me ; probably not sc 
 worthy of remembrance as our old communings were. 
 Crowds of visitors came about him, and ten times 
 or a hundred times as many would have come if 
 allowed ; well-dressed, decorous people, but for 
 most part tiresome, ignorant, weak, or even silly 
 and absurd. He persuaded himself that at least he 
 ' loved their love ; ' and of this latter, in the kind 
 they had to offer him, there did seem to be no lack. 
 He and I were walking, one bright summer evening, 
 somewhere in the outskirts of Islington, in what was 
 or had once been fields, and was again coarsely 
 green in general, but with symptoms of past devas- 
 tation by bricklayers, who have now doubtless 
 covered it all with their dirty human ' dog-hutches 
 of the period ; ' when, in some smoothish hollower 
 spot, there suddenly disclosed itself a considerable 
 company of altogether fine-looking young girls, who 
 had set themselves to dance ; all in airy bonnets, 
 silks, and flounces, merrily alert, nimble as young 
 fawns, tripping it to their own rhythm on the 
 light fantastic toe, with the bright beams of the 
 setting sun gilding them, and the hum and smoke
 
 Edward Irving. 2 1 7 
 
 of huge London shoved aside as foil or background. 
 Nothing could be prettier. At sight of us they sud- 
 denly stopped, all looking round ; and one of the 
 prettiest, a dainty little thing, stept radiantly out 
 to Irving. ' Oh ! oh ! Mr. Irving ! ' and blushing 
 and smiling offered her pretty lips to be kissed, 
 which Irving gallantly stooped down to accept as 
 well worth while. Whereupon, after some benedic- 
 tion or pastoral words, we went on our way. Prob- 
 ably I rallied him on such opulence of luck provided 
 for a man, to which he could answer properly as a 
 spiritual shepherd, not a secular. 
 
 There were several Scotch merchant people 
 among those that came about him, substantial city 
 men of shrewd insight and good honest sense, 
 several of whom seemed truly attached and reverent. 
 One, William Hamilton, a very shrewd and pious 
 Nithsdale man, who wedded a sister of Mrs. Irving's 
 by and by, and whom I knew till his death, was 
 probably the chief of these, as an old good Mr. 
 Dinwiddie, very zealous, very simple, and far from 
 shrewd, might perhaps be reckoned at or near the 
 other end of the series. Sir Peter Laurie, after- 
 wards of aldermanic and even mayoral celebrity, 
 came also pretty often, but seemed privately to look 
 quite from the aldermanic point of view on Irving
 
 2i8 Edward Irving. 
 
 and the new ' Caledonian Chapel ' they were strug- 
 gling to get built old Mr. Dinwiddie especially 
 struggling ; and indeed once to me at Paris, a 
 while after this, he likened Irving and Dinwiddie to 
 Harlequin and Blast, whom he had seen in some 
 farce then current; Harlequin conjuring up the 
 most glorious possibilities, like this of their ' Caledo- 
 nian Chapel,' and Blast loyally followiDg him with 
 swift destruction on attempting to help. Sir Peter 
 rather took to me, but not I much to him. A long- 
 sighted satirical ex-saddler I found him to be, and 
 nothing better ; nay, something of an ex-Scotch- 
 man too, which I could still less forgive. I went 
 with the Irvings once to his house (Crescent, head 
 of Portland Place) to a Christmas dinner this same 
 year. Very sumptuous, very cockneyish, strange 
 and unadmirable to me ; and don't remember to 
 have met him again. On our coming to live in 
 London he had rather grown in civic fame and im- 
 portance, and possibly, for I am not quite sure, on 
 the feeble chance of being of some help, I sent him 
 some indication or other ; l but if so he took no 
 notice ; gave no sign. Some years afterwards I met 
 
 A project belike and my card with it one of several air- 
 castles I was anxiously building at that time before taking to 
 French Revolution.
 
 Edward Irving. 2 1 9 
 
 him in my rides in the Park, evidently recognisant, 
 and willing or wistful to speak, but it never came 
 to effect, there being now no charm in it. Then 
 again, years afterwards, when ' Latter-day Pam- 
 phlets ' were coming out, he wrote me on that of 
 Model Prisons a knowing, approving, kindly and 
 civil letter, to which I willingly responded by a 
 kindly and civil. Not very long after that I think 
 he died, riding diligently almost to the end. Poor 
 Sir Peter ! he was nothing of a bad man, very far 
 other indeed ; but had lived in a loud roaring, big, 
 pretentious, and intrinsically barren sphere, uncon- 
 scious wholly that he might have risen to the top in 
 a considerably nobler and fruitfuller one. What a 
 tragic, treacherous stepdame is vulgar Fortune to 
 her children ! Sir Peter's wealth has gone now in 
 good part to somebody concerned in discovering, not 
 for the first time, the source of the Nile (blessings 
 on it" !) a Captain Grant, I think, companion to 
 Speke, having married Sir Peter's Scotch niece and 
 lady heiress, a good clever girl, once of ' Hadding- 
 ton,' and extremely poor, who made her way to my 
 loved one on the ground of common country in late 
 years, and used to be rather liked here in the few 
 visits she made. 
 
 Grant and she, who are now gone to India,
 
 220 Edward Irving. 
 
 called after marriage but found nobody; nor now 
 ever will. 
 
 By far the most distinguished two, and to me 
 the alone important, of Irving's London circle, were 
 Mrs. Strachey (Mrs. Buller's younger sister), and the 
 * noble lady' Mrs. Basil Montague, with both of 
 whom and their households I became acquainted 
 by his means. One of my first visits was along with 
 him to Goodenough House, Shooter's Hill, where 
 the Stracheys oftenest were in summer. I remem- 
 ber once entering the little winding avenue, and 
 seeing, in a kind of open conservatory or verandah 
 on our approaching the house, the effulgent vision 
 of ' dear Kitty ' buried among the roses and almost 
 buried under them ; who on sight of us glided 
 hastily in. The before and after and all other in- 
 cidents 'of that first visit are quite lost to me, but 
 I made a good many visits there and in town, and 
 grew familiar with my ground. 
 
 Of Mrs. Strachey I have spoken already. To 
 this day, long years after her death, I regard her as 
 a singular pearl of a woman, pure as dew, yet full of 
 love, incapable of unveracity to herself or others. 
 Examiner Strachey had long been an official (judge 
 etc.) in Bengal, where brothers of his were, and 
 sons still are. Eldest son is now master, by inherit-
 
 f Edward Irving. 2 2 i 
 
 ance, of the family estate in Somersetshire. One 
 of the brothers had translated a curious old Hindoo 
 treatise on algebra, which had made his name 
 familiar to me. Edward (that I think was the 
 examiner's name) might be a few years turned of 
 fifty at this time ; his wife twenty years younger, 
 with a number of pretty children, the eldest hardly 
 fourteen, and only one of them a girl. They lived 
 in Fitzroy Square, a fine-enough house, and had a 
 very pleasant country establishment at Shooter's 
 Hill ; where, in summer time, they were all com- 
 monly to be found. I have seldom seen a pleasanter 
 place; a panorama of green, flowery, clear, and 
 decorated country all round ; an umbrageous little 
 park, with roses, gardens ; a modestly-excellent 
 house ; from the drawing-room window a continual 
 view of ships, multiform and multitudinous, sailing 
 up or down the river (about a mile off); smoky 
 London as background ; the clear sky overhead ; 
 and within doors honesty, good sense, and smiling 
 seriousness the rule, and not the exception. Edward 
 Strachey was a genially-abrupt man, a Utilitarian 
 and Democrat by creed ; yet beyond all things he 
 loved Chaucer, and kept reading him ; a man rather 
 tacit than discursive, but willing to speak, and 
 doing it well, in a fine, tinkling, mellow-toned voice,
 
 222 Edward Irving. 
 
 in an ingenious aphoristic way; had, withal, a 
 pretty vein of quiz, which he seldom indulged in ; 
 a man sharply impatient of pretence, of sham and 
 untruth in all forms ; especially contemptuous of 
 quality pretensions and affectations, which he scai> 
 tered grinningly to the winds. Dressed in the sim- 
 plest form, he walked daily to the India House and 
 back, though there were fine carriages in store for 
 the woman part ; scorned cheerfully ' the general 
 humbug of the world,' and honestly strove to do his 
 own bit of duty, spiced by Chaucer and what else of 
 inward harmony or condiment he had. Of religion 
 in articulate shape he had none, but much respected 
 his wife's, whom and whose truthfulness in that as 
 in all things, he tenderly esteemed and loved ; a 
 man of many qualities comfortable to be near. At 
 his house, both in town and here, I have seen 
 pleasant graceful people, whose style of manners, if 
 nothing else, struck me as new and superior. 
 
 Mrs. Strachey took to me from the first, nor 
 ever swerved. It strikes me now more than it then 
 did, she silently could have liked to see ' dear 
 Kitty ' and myself come together, and so continue 
 near her, both of us, through life. The good kind 
 soul ! And Kitty, too, was charming in her beauti- 
 ful Begum sort ; had wealth abundant, and might,
 
 Edward Irving. 223 
 
 perhaps have been charmed ? None knows. She 
 had one of the prettiest smiles, a visible sense of 
 humour, the slight merry curl of her upper lip 
 (right side of it only), the carriage of her head and 
 eyes on such occasions, the quiet little things she 
 said in that kind, and her low-toned hearty laugh 
 were noticeable. This was perhaps her most 
 spiritual quality. Of developed intellect she had not 
 much, though not wanting in discernment ; amiable, 
 affectionate, graceful ; might be called attractive ; 
 not slim enough for the title ' pretty,' not tall 
 enough for ' beautiful ; ' had something low-voiced, 
 languidly harmonious, placid, sensuous ; loved per- 
 fumes etc. ; a half-Begum ; in short, an interesting 
 specimen of the semi-oriental Englishwoman. Still 
 lives ! near Exeter ; the wife of some ex-captain 
 of Sepoys, with many children, whom she watches 
 over with a passionate instinct; and has not quite 
 forgotten me, as I had evidence once in late years, 
 thanks to her kind little heart. 
 
 The Montague establishment (25 Bedford Square) 
 was still more notable, and as unlike this as pos- 
 sible; might be defined, not quite satirically, as 
 a most singular social and spiritual menagerie ; 
 which, indeed, was well known and much noted and 
 criticised in certain literary and other circles.
 
 224 Edward Irving. 
 
 Basil Montague, a Chancery barrister in excellent 
 practice, hugely a sage, too, busy all his days upon 
 ' Bacon's Works,' and continually preaching a super- 
 finish morality about benevolence, munificence, 
 health, peace, unfailing happiness. Much a bore 
 to you by degrees, and considerably a humbug if 
 you probed too strictly. Age at this time might be 
 about sixty ; good middle stature, face rather fine 
 under its grizzled hair, brow very prominent ; wore 
 oftenest a kind of smile, not false or consciously so, 
 but insignificant, and as if feebly defensive against 
 the intrusions of a rude world. On going to 
 Hinchinbrook long after, I found he was strikingly 
 like the dissolute, questionable Earl of Sandwich 
 (Foote's ' Jeremy Diddler ') ; who, indeed, had been 
 father of him in a highly tragic way. His mother, 
 pretty Miss Reay, carefully educated for that func- 
 tion ; Rev. ex-dragoon Hackman taking this so 
 dreadfully to heart that, being if not an ex-lover, a 
 lover (bless the mark!) he shot her as she came 
 out of Drury Lane Theatre one night, and got well 
 hanged for it. The story is musty rather, and there 
 is a loose foolish old book upon it called ' Love and 
 Madness,' which is not worth reading. Poor Basil ! 
 no wonder he had his peculiarities, coming by such 
 a genesis, and a life of his own which had been
 
 Edward Irving. 225 
 
 brimful of difficulties and confusions ! It cannot be 
 said he managed it ill, but far the contrary, all 
 things considered. Nobody can deny that he -wished 
 all the world rather well, could wishing have done 
 it. Express malice against anybody or anything 
 he seldom or never showed. I myself experienced 
 much kind flattery (if that were a benefit), much 
 soothing treatment in his house, and learned 
 several things there which were of use afterwards, 
 and not alloyed by the least harm done me. But it 
 was his wife, the * noble lady,' who in all senses pre- 
 sided there, to whom I stand debtor, and should be 
 thankful for all this. 
 
 Basil had been thrice married. Children of all 
 his marriages, and one child of the now Mrs. Mon- 
 tagu's own by a previous marriage, were present in 
 the house ; a most difficult miscellany. The one son 
 of B.'s first marriage we have already dined with, 
 and indicated that he soon ended by a bad road. 
 Still worse the three sons of the second marriage, 
 dandy young fellows by this time, who went all and 
 sundry to the bad, the youngest and luckiest soon 
 to a madhouse, where he probably still is. Nor 
 were the two boys of Mrs. Montagu Tertia a good 
 kind ; thoroughly vain or even proud, and with a 
 spice of angry falsity discernible amid their showy 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 Edward Irving* 
 
 talents. They grew up only to go astray and be 
 unlucky. Both long since are dead, or gone out of 
 sight. Only the eldest child, Emily, the single 
 daughter Basil had, succeeded in the world ; made 
 a good match (in Turin country somewhere), and is 
 still doing well. Emily was Basil's only daughter, 
 but she was not his wife's only one. Mrs. Montagu 
 had by her former marriage, which had been brief, 
 one daughter, six or eight years older than Emily 
 Montagu. Anne Skepper the name of this one, and 
 York or Yorkshire her birthplace ; a brisk, witty, 
 prettyish, sufficiently clear-eyed and sharp-tongued 
 young lady ; bride, or affianced, at this time, of the 
 poet 'Barry Cornwall,' i.e. Brian "W. Procter, whose 
 wife, both of them still prosperously living (1860), 
 she now is. Anne rather liked me, I her ; an evi- 
 dently true, sensible, and practical young lady in a 
 house considerably in want of such an article. She 
 was the fourth genealogic species among those 
 children, visibly the eldest, all but Basil's first son 
 now gone ; and did, and might well pass for, the 
 flower of the collection. 
 
 Kuling such a miscellany of a household, with 
 Basil Montagu at the head, and an almost still 
 stranger miscellaneous society that fluctuated 
 through it, Mrs. Montagu had a problem like few
 
 Edward Irving. 227 
 
 others. But she, if anyone, was equal to it. A 
 more constant and consummate artist in that kind 
 you could nowhere meet with ; truly a remarkable 
 and partly a high and tragical woman ; now about 
 fifty, with the remains of a certain queenly beauty 
 which she still took strict care of. A tall, rather 
 thin figure ; a face pale, intelligent, and penetrating ; 
 nose fine, rather large, and decisively Eoman ; pair 
 of bright, not soft, but sharp and small black eyes, 
 with a cold smile as of enquiry in them ; fine brow ; 
 fine chin (both rather prominent) : thin lips lips 
 always gently shut, as if till the enquiry were com- 
 pleted, and the time came for something of royal 
 speech upon it. She had a slight Yorkshire accent, 
 but spoke Dr. Hugh Blair could not have picked a 
 hole in it and you might have printed every word, 
 so queenlike, gentle, soothing, measured, prettily 
 royal towards subjects whom she wished to love her. 
 The voice was modulated, low, not inharmonious ; 
 yet there was something of metallic in it, akin to 
 that smile in the eyes. One durst not quite love 
 this high personage as she wished to be loved ! Her 
 very dress was notable ; always the same, and in a 
 fashion of its own ; kind of widow's cap fastened 
 below the chin, darkish puce-coloured silk all the 
 rest, and (I used to hear from one who knew !) was 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 Edward Irving. 
 
 admirable, and must have required daily the fasten- 
 ing of sixty or eighty pins. 
 
 There were many criticisms of Mrs. Montagu 
 often angry ones ; but the truth is she did love and 
 aspire to human excellence, and her road to it was 
 no better than a steep hill of jingling boulders and 
 sliding sand. There remained therefore nothing, 
 if you still aspired, but to succeed ill and put the 
 best face on it. Which she amply did. I have 
 heard her speak of the Spartan boy who let the fox 
 hidden under his robe eat him, rather than rob him 
 of his honour from the theft. 
 
 In early life she had made some visit to Niths- 
 dale (to the * Craiks of Arligsland '), and had seen 
 "Burns, of whom her worship continued fervent, her 
 few recollections always a jewel she was ready to 
 produce. She must have been strikingly beautiful 
 at that time, and Burns's recognition and adoration 
 would not be wanting ; the most royally courteous 
 of mankind she always denned him, as the first 
 mark of his genius. I think I have heard that, at a 
 ball at Dumfries, she had frugally constructed some 
 dress by sewing real flowers upon it ; and shone by 
 that bit of art. and by her fine bearing, as the 
 cynosure of all eyes. Her father, I gradually under- 
 stood, not from herself, had been a man of incon-
 
 Edward Irving. 229 
 
 siderable wealth or position, a wine merchant in 
 York, his name Benson. Her first husband, Mr. 
 Skepper, some young lawyer there, of German ex- 
 traction ; and that the romance of her wedding 
 Montagu, which she sometimes touched on, had 
 been prosaically nothing but this. Seeing herself, 
 on Skepper's death, left destitute with a young 
 girl, she consented to take charge of Montagu's 
 motherless confused family under the name of 
 * governess,' bringing her own little Anne as append- 
 age. Had succeeded well, and better and better, 
 for some time, perhaps some years, in that ticklish 
 capacity; whereupon at length offer of marriage, 
 which she accepted. Her sovereignty in the house 
 had to be soft, judicious, politic, but it was con- 
 stant and valid, felt to be beneficial withal. ' She is 
 like one in command of a mutinous ship which is 
 ready to take fire,' Irving once said to me. By this 
 time he had begun to discover that this * noble 
 lady ' was in essentiality an artist, and hadn't per- 
 haps so much loved him as tried to buy love from 
 him by soft ministrations, by the skilfullest flattery 
 liberally laid on. He continued always to look 
 kindly towards her, but had now, or did by-and-by, 
 let drop the old epithet. Whether she had done 
 him good or ill would be hard to say ; ill perhaps !
 
 230 Edward Irving. 
 
 In this liberal London, pitch your sphere one step 
 lower than yourself, and you can get what amount 
 of flattery you will consent to. Everybody has it, 
 like paper money, for the printing, and will buy a 
 small amount of ware by any quantity of it. The 
 generous Irving did not find out this so soon as 
 some surlier fellows of us ! 
 
 On one of the first fine mornings, Mrs. Montague, 
 along with Irving, took me out to see Coleridge at 
 Highgate. My impressions of the man and of the 
 place are conveyed faithfully enough in the ' Life of 
 Sterling ; ' that first interview in particular, of which 
 I had expected very little, was idle and unsatis- 
 factory, and yielded me nothing. Coleridge, a 
 puffy, anxious, obstructed-looking, fattish old man, 
 hobbled about with us, talking with a kind of solemn 
 emphasis on matters which were of no interest (and 
 even reading pieces in proof of his opinions thereon). 
 I had him to myself once or twice, in various parts 
 of the garden walks, and tried hard to get some- 
 thing about Kant and Co. from him, about ' reason ' 
 versus * understanding ' and the like, but in vain. 
 Nothing came from him that was of use to me that 
 day, or in fact any day. The sight and sound of a 
 sage who was so venerated by those about me, and 
 whom I too would willingly have venerated, but
 
 Edward Irving. 231 
 
 could not this was all. Several times afterwards, 
 Montagu, on Coleridge's ' Thursday evenings,' carried 
 Irving and me out, and returned blessing Heaven 
 (I not) for what he had received. Irving and I 
 walked out more than once on mornings too, and 
 found the Dodona oracle humanly ready to act, but 
 never to me, or Irving either I suspect, explanatory of 
 the question put. Good Irving strove always to think 
 that he was getting priceless wisdom out of this 
 great man, but must have had his misgivings. Ex- 
 cept by the Montagu-Irving channel, I at no time 
 communicated with Coleridge. I had never on my 
 own strength had much esteem for him, and found 
 slowly in spite of myself that I was getting to have 
 less and less. Early in 1825 was my last sight of 
 him ; a print of Person brought some trifling utter- 
 ance : ' Sensuality such a dissolution of the features 
 of a man's face ; ' and I remember nothing more. On 
 my second visit to London (autumn 1830) Irving 
 and I had appointed a day for a pilgrimage to 
 Highgate, but the day was one rain deluge and we 
 couldn't even try. Soon after our settling here (late 
 in 1834) Coleridge was reported to be dying, and 
 died ; I had seen the last of him almost a decade ago. 
 A great * worship of genius ' habitually went on 
 at Montagu's, fr^m self and wife especially ; Cole-
 
 232 Edward Trmng. 
 
 ridge the head of the Lares there, though he never 
 appeared in person, but only wrote a word or two of 
 note on occasions. A confused dim miscellany of 
 * geniuses ' (mostly nondescript and harmlessly use- 
 less) hovered fitfully about the establishment; I 
 think those of any reality had tired and gone away. 
 There was much talk and laud of Charles Lamb and 
 his Pepe etc., but he never appeared. At his own house 
 I I saw him once ; once I gradually felt to have been 
 ' enough for me. Poor Lamb ! such a * divine genius * 
 you could find in the London world only ! Hazlitt, 
 whom I had a kind of curiosity about, was not now 
 of the ' admitted ' (such the hint) ; at any rate kept 
 strictly away. There was a * Crabbe Kobinson,' who 
 had been in Weimar etc., who was first of the ' Own 
 Correspondents ' now so numerous. This is now his 
 real distinction. There was a Mr. Fearn, ' profound in 
 metaphysics ' (' dull utterly and dry '). There was 
 a Dr. Sir Anthony Carlile, of name in medicine, 
 native of Durham and a hard-headed fellow, but 
 Utilitarian to the bone, who had defined poetry to 
 Irving once as ' the prodooction of a rude aage.' We 
 were clansmen, he and I, but had nothing of mutual 
 attraction, nor of repulsion either, for the man didn't 
 want for shrewd sense in his way. I heard continual 
 talk and admiration of 'the grand old English writers'
 
 Edward Irving. 233 
 
 (Fuller, Sir Thomas Browne, and various others 
 Milton more rarely); this was the orthodox strain. 
 But there was little considerable of actual knowledge, 
 and of critical appreciation almost nothing at the 
 back of it anywhere ; and in the end it did one next 
 to no good, yet perhaps not quite none, deducting in 
 accurate balance all the ill that might be in it. 
 
 Nobody pleased me so much in this miscellany 
 as Procter (Barry Cornwall), who for the fair Anne 
 Skepper's sake was very constantly there. Anne 
 and he were to have been, and were still to be 
 married, but some disaster or entanglement in 
 Procter's attorney business had occurred (some 
 partner defalcating or the like), and Procter, in 
 evident distress and dispiritment, was waiting the 
 slow conclusion of this; which and the wedding 
 thereupon happily took place in the winter following. 
 A decidedly rather pretty little fellow Procter, 
 bodily and spiritually; manners prepossessing, 
 slightly London-elegant, not unpleasant; clear 
 judgment in him, though of narrow field ; a sound 
 honourable morality, and airy friendly ways ; of 
 slight neat figure, vigorous for his size ; fine genially 
 rugged little face, fine head ; something curiously 
 dreamy in the eyes of him, lids drooping at the outer 
 ends into a cordially meditative and drooping ezpres-
 
 234 Edward Irving. 
 
 sion ; would break out suddenly now and then into 
 opera attitude and a La ci darem la mano for a mo- 
 ment ; had something of real fun, though in London 
 style. Me he had invited to ' his garret,' as he called 
 it, and was always good and kind and so continues, 
 though I hardly see him once in a quarter of a 
 century. 
 
 The next to Procter in my esteem, and the con- 
 siderably more important to me just then, was a 
 young Mr. Badams, in great and romantic estima- 
 tion there, and present every now and then, though 
 his place and business lay in Birmingham ; a most 
 cheery, gifted, really amiable man, with whom not 
 long afterwards I more or less romantically went to 
 Birmingham, and though not cured of ' dyspepsia ' 
 there (alas, not the least) had two or three singular 
 and interesting months, as will be seen. 
 
 Irving's preaching at Hatton Garden, which I re- 
 gularly attended while in his house, and occasionally 
 afterwards, did not strike me as superior to his Scotch 
 performances of past time, or, in private fact, inspire 
 me with any complete or pleasant feeling. Assent 
 to them I could not, except under very wide reserva- 
 tions, nor, granting all his postulates, did either 
 matter or manner carry me captive, or at any time 
 perfect my admiration. The force and weight of
 
 Edward Irving. 235 
 
 what he urged was undeniable ; the potent faculty at 
 work, like that of a Samson heavily striding along 
 with the gates of Ofaza on his shoulders ; but there 
 was a want of spontaneity and simplicity, a some- 
 thing of strained and aggravated, of elaborately 
 intentional, which kept gaining on the mind. One 
 felt the bad element to be and to have been un- 
 wholesome to the honourable soul. The doors were 
 crowded long before opening, and you got in by 
 ticket; but the first sublime rush of what once 
 seemed more than popularity, and had been nothing 
 more Lady Jersey ' sitting on the pulpit steps,' 
 Canning, Brougham, Mackintosh, etc. rushing day 
 after day was now quite over, and there remained 
 only a popularity of ' the people ; ' not of the plebs 
 at all, but never higher than of the well-dressed 
 populus henceforth, which was a sad change to the 
 sanguine man. One noticed that he was not happy, 
 but anxious, struggling, questioning the future ; 
 happiness, alas, he was no more to have, even in the 
 old measure, in this world ! At sight of Canning, 
 Brougham, Lady Jersey and Co., crowding round him 
 and listening week after week as if to the message 
 of salvation, the noblest and joyfullest thought (I 
 know this on perfect authority) had taken possession 
 of his noble, too sanguine, and too trustful mind ;
 
 236 Edward Irving. 
 
 * that the Christian religion was to be a truth again, 
 not a paltry form, and to rule the world, he unworthy, 
 even he, the chosen instrument.' Mrs. Strachey, who 
 had seen him in her own house in these moods, 
 spoke to me once of this, and only once, reporting 
 some of his expressions with an affectionate sorrow. 
 Cruelly blasted all these hopes were, but Irving 
 never to the end of his life could consent to give 
 them up. That was the key to all his subsequent 
 procedures, extravagances, aberrations, so far as I 
 could understand them. Whatever of blame (and 
 there was on the surface a fond credulity, or per- 
 haps, farther down, and as root to such credulity, 
 some excess of self-love, which I define always as love 
 that others should love him, not as any worse kind), 
 with that degree of blame Irving must stand charged, 
 with that and with no more, so far as I could testify 
 or understand. 
 
 Good Mrs. Oliphant, and probably her public, 
 have much mistaken me on this point. That Irving 
 to the very last had abundant ' popularity,' and con- 
 fluence of auditors sufficient for the largest pulpit 
 
 * vanity,' I knew and know, but also that his own 
 immeasurable and quasi-celestial hope remained 
 cruelly blasted, refusing the least bud farther, and 
 that without this all else availed him nothing.
 
 Edward Irving. 237 
 
 Fallacious semblances of bud it did shoot out again 
 and again, under his continual fostering and forcing, 
 but real bud never more, and the case in itself is 
 easy to understand, 
 
 He had much quiet seriousness, beautiful piety 
 and charity, in this bud time of agitation and dis- 
 quietude, and I was often honestly sorry for him. 
 Here was still the old true man, and his new ele- 
 ment seemed so false and abominable. Honestly, 
 though not so purely, sorry as now, now when ele- 
 ment and man are alike gone, and all that was or 
 partook of paltry in one's own view of them is also 
 mournfully gone ! He had endless patience with 
 the mean people crowding about him and jostling 
 his life to pieces; hoped always they were not 
 so mean ; never complained of the uncomfortable 
 huggermugger hi g life was now grown to be ; took 
 everything, wife, servants, guests, by the most 
 favourable handle. He had infinite delight in a 
 little baby boy there now was ; went dandling it 
 about in his giant arms, tick-ticking to it, laughing 
 and playing to it ; would turn seriously round to me 
 with a face sorrowful rather than otherwise, and say, 
 ' Ah, Carlyle, this little creature has been sent to me 
 to soften my hard heart, which did need it.' 
 
 Towards all distressed people not absolutely
 
 238 Edicard Irving. 
 
 criminals, his kindness, frank helpfulness, long- 
 suffering, and assiduity, were in truth wonderful to 
 me ; especially in one case, that of a Reverend Mr. 
 Macbeth, which I thought ill of from the first, and 
 which did turn out hopeless. Macbeth was a 
 Scotch preacher, or licentiate, who had failed of a 
 kirk, as he had deserved to do, though his talents 
 were good, and was now hanging very miscellane- 
 ously on London, with no outlooks that were not 
 bog meteors, and a steadily increasing tendency to 
 strong drink. He knew town well, and its babble 
 and bits of temporary cynosures, and frequented 
 haunts good and perhaps bad ; took me one evening 
 to the poet Campbell's, whom I had already seen, but 
 not successfully. 
 
 Macbeth had a sharp sarcastic, clever kind of 
 tongue ; not much real knowledge, but was amusing 
 to talk with on a chance walk through the streets ; 
 older than myself by a dozen years or more. Like 
 him I did not ; there was nothing of wisdom, gene- 
 rosity, or worth in him, but in secret, evidently dis- 
 cernible, a great deal of bankrupt vanity which had 
 taken quite the malignant shape. Undeniable envy, 
 spite, and bitterness looked through every part of 
 him. A tallish, slouching, lean figure, face sorrowful 
 malignant, black, not unlike the picture of a devil.
 
 Edward Ircing. 239 
 
 To me he had privately much the reverse of likmg. 
 I have seen him in Irving's and elsewhere (perhaps 
 with a little drink on his stomach, poor soul !) break 
 out into oblique little spurts of positive spite, which 
 I understood to mean merely, ' Young Jackanapes, 
 getting yourself noticed and honoured while a 
 mature man of genius is etc. etc. ! ' and took no notice 
 of, to the silent comfort of self and neighbours. 
 
 This broken Macbeth had been hanging a good 
 while about Irving, who had taken much earnest 
 pains to rescue and arrest him on the edge of the 
 precipices, but latterly had begun to see that it was 
 hopeless, and had rather left him to his own bad 
 courses. One evening, it was in dirty winter weather 
 and I was present, there came to Irving or to Mrs. 
 Irving, dated from some dark tavern in the Holborn 
 precincts, a piteous little note from Macbeth. 
 ' Euined again (tempted, how cunningly, to my 
 old sin) ; been drinking these three weeks, and now 
 have a chalk-score and no money, and can't get out. 
 Oh, help a perishing sinner ! ' The majority was of 
 opinion, { Pshaw ! it is totally useless ! ' but Irving 
 after some minutes of serious consideration decided, 
 * No, not totally ; ' and directly got into a hackney 
 coach, wife and he, proper moneys in pocket, paid 
 the poor devil's tavern score (some 21. 10s. or so, if I
 
 240 Edward Irving. 
 
 remember) and brought him groaning home out of 
 his purgatory again : for he was in much bodily 
 suffering too. I remember to have been taken up 
 to see him one evening in his bedroom (comfortable 
 airy place) a week or two after. He was in clean 
 dressing-gown and night-cap, walking about the 
 floor ; affected to turn away his face and be quite 
 ' ashamed ' when Irving introduced me, which as I 
 could discern it to be painful hypocrisy merely, for- 
 bade my visit to be other than quite brief. Com- 
 ment I made none here or downstairs ; was actually 
 a little sorry, but without hope, and rather think 
 this was my last sight of Macbeth. Another time, 
 which could not now be distant, when he lay again 
 under chalk-score and bodily sickness in his drink- 
 ing shop, there would be no deliverance but to the 
 hospital ; and there I suppose the poor creature 
 tragically ended. He was not without talent, had 
 written a * Book on the Sabbath,' better or worse, 
 and I almost think was understood, with all his im- 
 penitences and malignities, to have real love for his 
 poor old Scotch mother. After that night in his 
 clean airy bedroom I have no recollection or tradi- 
 tion of him a vanished quantity, hardly once in my 
 thoughts for above forty years past. There were 
 other disastrous or unpleasant figures whom I met
 
 Edward Irving. 241 
 
 at Irving's; a Danish fanatic of Calvinistic species 
 (repeatedly, and had to beat him off), a good many 
 fanatics of different kinds one insolent ' Bishop of 
 Toronto,' triumphant Canadian but Aberdeen by 
 dialect (once only, from whom Irving defended me), 
 etc. etc. ; but of these I say nothing. Irving, though 
 they made his house-element and life-element con- 
 tinually muddy for him, was endlessly patient with 
 them all. 
 
 This my first visit to London lasted with inter- 
 ruptions from early June 1824 till March 1825, 
 during which I repeatedly lodged for a little while 
 at Irving's, his house ever open to me like a brother's, 
 but cannot now recollect the times or their circum- 
 stances. The above recollections extend vaguely 
 over the whole period, during the last four or five 
 months of which I had my own rooms in Southamp- 
 ton Street near by, and was still in almost constant 
 familiarity. My own situation was very wretched ; 
 primarily from a state of health which nobody 
 could be expected to understand or sympathise 
 with, and about which I had as much as possible to 
 be silent. The accursed hag 'Dyspepsia' had got 
 me bitted and bridled, and was ever striving to make 
 my waking living day a thing of ghastly night- 
 mares. I resisted what I could ; never did yield or 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 Edward Irving. 
 
 surrender to her ; but she kept my heart right heavy, 
 my battle very sore and hopeless. One could not 
 call it hope but only desperate obstinacy refusing 
 to flinch that animated me. ' Obstinacy as of ten 
 mules ' I have sometimes called it since ; but in 
 candid truth there was something worthily human 
 in it too ; and I have had through life, among 
 my manifold unspeakable blessings, no other real 
 bower anchor to ride by in the rough seas. Human 
 * obstinacy ' grounded on real faith and insight is 
 good and the best. 
 
 All was change, too, at this time with me, all 
 uncertainty. Mrs. Buller, the bright, the ardent, 
 the airy, was a changeful lady ! The original pro- 
 gramme had been, we were all to shift to Cornwall, 
 live in some beautiftd Buller cottage there was 
 about East Looe or West (on her eldest 'brother-in- 
 law's property). With this as a fixed thing I had 
 arrived in London, asking myself ' what kind of a 
 thing will it be ? ' It proved to have become already 
 a thing of all the winds ; gone like a dream of the 
 night (by some accident or other !) For four or five 
 weeks coming there was new scheme, followed always 
 by newer and newest, all of which proved successively 
 inexecutable, greatly to my annoyance and regret, 
 as may be imagined. The only thing that did ever
 
 Edward Irving. 243 
 
 take effect was the shifting of Charles and me out to 
 solitary lodgings at Kew Green, an isolating of us 
 two (pro tempore) over our lessons there, one of the 
 dreariest and uncomfortablest things to both of us. 
 It lasted for about a fortnight, till Charles, I suppose 
 privately pleading, put an end to it as intolerable 
 and useless both (for one could not ' study ' but only 
 pretend to do it in such an element !) Other wild 
 projects rose rapidly, rapidly vanished futile. The 
 end was, in a week or two after, I deliberately 
 counselled that Charles should go direct for Cam- 
 bridge next term, in the meantime making ready 
 under some fit college ' grinder ; ' I myself not with- 
 out regret taking leave of the enterprise. Which 
 proposal, after some affectionate resistance on the 
 part of Charles, was at length(rather suddenly, I 
 recollect) acceded to by the elder people, and one 
 bright summer morning (still vivid to me) I stept 
 out of a house in Foley Place, with polite farewell 
 sounding through me, and the thought as I walked 
 along Eegent Street, that here I was without em- 
 ployment henceforth. Money was no longer quite 
 wanting, enough of money for some time to come, 
 but the question what to do next was not a little 
 embarrassing, and indeed was intrinsically abstruse 
 enough. 
 
 S 2
 
 244 Edward Irving. 
 
 I must have been lodging again with Irving 
 when this finale came. I recollect Charles Buller and 
 I, a day or some days after quitting Kew, had ren- 
 dezvoused by appointment in Regent Square (St. 
 Pancras), where Irving and a great company were 
 laying the foundation of ' Caledonian Chapel ' (which 
 still stands there), and Irving of course had to 
 deliver an address. Of the address, which was going 
 on when we arrived, I could hear nothing, such 
 the confusing crowd and the unfavourable locality 
 (a muddy chaos of rubbish and excavations, Irving 
 and the actors shut off from us by a circle of rude 
 bricklayers' planks) ; but I well remember Irving's 
 glowing face, streaming hair, and deeply moved 
 tones as he spoke ; and withal that Charles Buller 
 brought me some new futility of a proposal, and 
 how sad he looked, good youth, when I had directly 
 to reply with ( No, alas, I cannot, Charles.' This was 
 but a few days before the Buller finale. 
 
 Twenty years after, riding discursively towards 
 Tottenham one summer evening, with the breath of 
 the wind from northward, and London hanging to my 
 right hand like a grim and vast sierra, I saw among 
 the peaks, as easily ascertainable, the high minarets 
 of that chapel, and thought with myself, ' Ah, you 
 fatal tombstone of my lost friend ! and did a soul so
 
 Edward Irving. 245 
 
 strong and high avail only to build you? 9 and felt 
 sad enough and rather angry in looking at the 
 thing. 
 
 It was not many days after this of the Eegent 
 Square address, which was quickly followed by ter- 
 mination with the Bullers, that I found myself one 
 bright Sunday morning on the top of a swift coach 
 for Birmingham, with intent towards the Mr. Badams 
 above mentioned, and a considerable visit there, for 
 health's sake mainly. Badams and the Montagues 
 had eagerly proposed and counselled this step. 
 Badams himself was so eager about it, and seemed 
 so frank, cheery, ingenious, and friendly a man that 
 I had listened to his pleadings with far more regard 
 than usual in such a case, and without assenting had 
 been seriously considering the proposal for some 
 weeks before (during the Kew Green seclusion and 
 perhaps earlier). He was in London twice or thrice 
 while things hung in deliberation, and was each 
 time more eager and persuasive on me. In fine I 
 had assented, and was rolling along through sunny 
 England the first considerable space I had yet seen 
 of it with really pleasant recognition of its fertile 
 beauties and air of long-continued cleanliness, con- 
 tentment, and well-being. Stony Stratford, Fenny 
 Stratford, and the good people coming out of church,
 
 246 Edward Irving. 
 
 Coventry, etc. etc., all this is still a picture. Our 
 coach was of the swiftest in the world ; appointments 
 perfect to a hair ; one and a half minutes the time 
 allowed for changing horses ; our coachman, in dress 
 etc. resembled a ' sporting gentleman,' and scornfully 
 called any groundling whom he disliked, * You 
 Eadical ! ' for one symptom. I don't remember a 
 finer ride, as if on the arrow of Abaris, with lips shut 
 and nothing to do but look. My reception at Ash- 
 sted (west end of Birmingham, not far from the great 
 Watt's house of that, name), and instalment in the 
 Badams' domesticities, must have well corresponded 
 to my expectations, as I have now no memory of it. 
 My visit in whole, which lasted for above three 
 months, may be pronounced interesting, idle, pleasant, 
 and successful, though singular. 
 
 Apart from the nimbus of Montague romance in 
 the first accounts I had got of Badams, he was a 
 gifted, amiable, and remarkable man, who proved 
 altogether friendly and beneficent, so far as he went, 
 with me, and whose final history, had I time for it, 
 would be tragical in its kind. He was eldest boy of 
 a well-doing but not opulent master-workman (plum- 
 ber, I think) in Warwick town ; got marked for the 
 ready talents he showed, especially for some picture 
 he had on his own resources and unaided inventions
 
 Edward Irving. 247 
 
 copied in the Warwick Castle gallery with ' wonderful 
 success ' ; and in fine was taken hold of by the 
 famous Dr. Parr and others of that vicinity, and 
 lived some time as one of Parr's scholars in Parr's 
 house ; learning I know not what, not taking very 
 kindly to the CEolic digamma department I should 
 apprehend ! He retained a kindly and respectful 
 remembrance about this Trismegistus of the then 
 pedants, but always in brief quizzical form. Having 
 declared for medicine he was sent to Edinburgh 
 College, studied there for one session or more ; but 
 ' being desirous to marry some beautiful lady-love ' 
 (said the Montagues), or otherwise determined on a 
 shorter road to fortune, he now cut loose from his 
 patrons, and modestly planted himself in Birming- 
 ham, with purpose of turning to account some 
 chemical ideas he had gathered in the classes here ; 
 rivalling of French green vitriol by purely English 
 methods (' no husks of grapes for you and your 
 vitriol, ye English ; your vitriol only half the selling 
 price of ours ! ') that I believe was it, and Badams 
 had fairly succeeded in it and in other branches of 
 the colour business, and had a manufactory of 
 twenty or fewer hands, full of thrifty and curious 
 ingenuity; at the outer corner of which, fronting 
 on two streets, was his modest but comfortable
 
 248 Edward Irving. 
 
 dwelling-house, where I now lived with him as 
 guest. Simplicity and a pure and direct aim at the 
 essential (aim good and generally successful), that 
 was our rule in this establishment, which was and 
 continued always innocently comfortable and home- 
 like to me. The lowest floor, opening rearward of 
 the manufactory, was exclusively given up to an ex- 
 cellent Mrs. Barnet (with husband and family of 
 two), who in perfection and in silence kept house to 
 us ; her husband, whom Badams only tolerated for 
 her sake, working out of doors among the twenty. 
 We lived in the two upper floors, entering from one 
 street door, and wearing a modestly civilised air. 
 Everything has still a living look to me in that 
 place ; not even the bad Barnet, who never showed 
 his badness, but has claims on me ; still more the 
 venerable lean and brown old grandfather Barnet, 
 who used to * go for our letters,' and hardly ever 
 spoke except by his fine and mournful old eyes. 
 These Barnets, with the workmen generally, and their 
 quiet steady ways, were pleasant to observe, but 
 especially our excellent, sad, pure, and silent Mrs. 
 Barnet, correct as an eight-day clock, and making 
 hardly as much noise ! Always dressed in modest 
 black, tall, clean, well-looking, light of foot and
 
 Edward Irving. 249 
 
 hand. She was very much loved by Badams as a 
 friend of his mother's and a woman of real worth, 
 bearing well a heavy enough load of sorrows (chronic 
 disease of the heart to crown them he would add). I 
 remember the sight of her, one afternoon, in some 
 lighted closet there was, cutting out the bit of bread 
 for the children's luncheon, two dear pretty little 
 girls who stood looking up with hope, her silence 
 and theirs, and the fine human relation between 
 them, as one of my pleasant glimpses into English 
 humble life. The younger of these pretty children 
 died within few years ; the elder, * Bessy Barnet,' 
 a creature of distinguished faculties who has had 
 intricate vicissitudes and fortunate escapes, stayed 
 with us here as our first servant (servant and friend 
 both in one) for about a year, then went home, and 
 after long and complete disappearance from our 
 thoughts and affairs, re-emerged, most modestly 
 triumphant, not very long ago, as wife of the 
 accomplished Dr. Blakiston of Leamington ; in 
 which capacity she showed a generous exaggerated 
 1 gratitude ' to her old mistress and me, and set her- 
 self and her husband unweariedly to help in that 
 our sad Leamington season of woe and toil, which 
 has now ended in eternal peace to one of us. Nor
 
 250 Edward Irving . 
 
 can Dr. E.'s and his ' Bessy's ' kindness in it ever 
 be forgotten while the other of us still lingers here ! 
 Ah me ! ah me ! 
 
 My Birmingham visit, except as it continually 
 kept me riding about in the open air, did nothing 
 for me in the anti-dyspeptic way, but in the social 
 and spiritually consolatory way it was really of bene- 
 fit. Badams was a horse fancier, skilful on horse- 
 back, kept a choice two or three of horses here, and 
 in theory professed the obligation to 'ride for 
 health,' but very seldom by himself did it- it was 
 always along with me, and not one tenth part so 
 often as I during this sojourn. With me red ' Taffy,' 
 the briskest of Welsh ponies, went galloping daily 
 far and wide, unless I were still better mounted 
 (for exercise of the other high-going sort), and many 
 were the pleasant rides I had in the Warwickshire 
 lanes and heaths, and real good they did me, if 
 Badams's medicinal and dietetic formalities (to which 
 I strictly conformed) did me little or none. His 
 unaffected kindness, and cheerful human sociality 
 and friendliness, manifest at all times, could not but 
 be of use to me too. Seldom have I seen a franker, 
 trustier, cheerier form of human kindliness than 
 Badams's. How I remember the laughing eyes and 
 sunny figure of him breaking into my room on
 
 Edward Irving. 25 i 
 
 mornings, himself half-dressed (waistband in hand 
 was a common aspect, and hair all flying). ' What ! 
 not up yet, monster ? ' The smile of his eyes, the 
 sound of his voice, were so bright and practically 
 true on these occasions. A tight, middle-sized, 
 handsome kind of man, eyes blue, sparkling soft, 
 nose and other features inclining to the pointed, com- 
 plexion, which was the weak part, tending rather to 
 bluish, face always shaven bare and no whiskers left ; 
 a man full of hope, full of natural intellect, ingenuity, 
 invention, essentially a gentleman ; and really looked 
 well and jauntily aristocratic when dressed for riding 
 or the like, which was always a careful preliminary. 
 Slight rusticity of accent rather did him good ; so 
 prompt, mildly emphatic and expressive were the 
 words that came from him. His faults were a too 
 sanguine temper, and a defective inner sternness of 
 veracity : true he was, but not sternly enough, and 
 would listen to imagination and delusive hopes when 
 Fact said No for which two faults, partly recognis- 
 able to me even then, I little expected he would by 
 and by pay so dear. 
 
 We had a pleasant time together, many pleasant 
 summer rides, and outdoor talks and in ; to Guy's 
 Cliff, Warwick Castle, Sutton Coldfield, or Kenil- 
 worth, etc., on holidays ; or miscellaneously over the
 
 252 Edward Irving. 
 
 furzy heaths and leafy ruralities on common even- 
 ings. I remember well a ride we made to Kenil- 
 worth one Saturday afternoon by the 'wood of 
 Arden ' and its monstrous old oaks, on to the famous 
 ruin itself (fresh in the Scott novels then), and a 
 big jolly farmer of Badams's, who lodged us nice 
 polite wife a:id he in a finely human way till 
 Monday morning, with much talk about old Parr, 
 in whose parish (Hatton) we then were. Old Parr 
 would have been desirabler to me than the great old 
 ruin (now mainly a skeleton, part of it a coarse 
 farm-house, which was the most interesting part). 
 But Badams did not propose a call on his old pedant 
 friend, and I could not be said to regret the omis- 
 sion ; a saving of so much trouble withal. There 
 was a sort of pride felt in their Dr. Parr all over 
 this region; yet everybody seemed to consider 
 him a ridiculous old fellow, whose strength of intel- 
 lect was mainly gone to self-will and fantasticality. 
 They all mimicked his lisp, and talked of wig and 
 tobacco-pipe. (No pipe, no Parr ! his avowed prin- 
 ciple when asked to dinner among fine people.) The 
 old man came to Edinburgh on a visit to Dr. Gre- 
 gory, perhaps the very next year ; and there, too, 
 for a year following there lingered traditions of 
 good-natured grins and gossip, which one heard of;
 
 Edward Irving. 253 
 
 but the man himself I never saw, nor, though rather 
 liking him, sensibly cared to see. 
 
 Another very ijaemorable gallop (we always went 
 at galloping or cantering pace, and Badams was 
 proud of his cattle and their really great prowess), 
 was one morning out to Hagley ; to the top of the 
 Clent Hill for a view, after breakfast at Hagley 
 Tap, and then return. Distance from Birmingham 
 about seventeen miles. ' The Leasowes ' (Poet 
 Shenstone's place), is about midway (visible enough 
 to left in the level sun-rays as you gallop out); 
 after which comes a singular Terra di Lavoro or 
 wholly metallic country Hales Owen the heart of 
 it. Thick along the wayside, little forges built of 
 single brick, hardly bigger than sentry-boxes ; and 
 in each of them, with bellows, stake, and hammer 
 a woman busy making nails ; fine tall young women 
 several of them, old others, but all in clean aprons, 
 clean white calico jackets (must have been Monday 
 morning), their look industrious and patient. Seems 
 as if all the nails in the world were getting made 
 here on very unexpected terms ! Hales Owen itself 
 had much sunk under the improved highway, but 
 was cheerfully jingling as we cantered through. 
 Hagley Tap and its quiet green was all our own; 
 not to be matched out of England. Lord Lyttelton's
 
 254 Edward Irving. 
 
 mansion I have ever since in my eye as a noble- 
 looking place, when his lordship comes athwart me ; 
 a rational, ruggedly-considerate kind of man whom 
 I could have liked to see there (as he was good 
 enough to wish), had there been a Fortunatus 
 travelling carpet dt my disposal. Smoke pillars 
 many, in a definite straight or spiral shape ; the 
 Dudley 'Black Country,' under favourable omens, 
 visible from the Clent Hill ; after which, and the 
 aristocratic roof works, attics, and grand chimney 
 tops of Hagley mansion, the curtain quite drops. 
 
 Of persons also I met some notable or quasi- 
 notable. ' Joe ' Parkes, then a small Birmingham 
 attorney, afterwards the famous Reform Club ditto, 
 was a visitor at Badams's on rare evenings ; a rather 
 pleasant-talking, shrewd enough little fellow, with 
 bad teeth, and a knowing flighty satirical way; 
 whom Badams thought little of, but tolerated for 
 his (Joe's) mother's sake, as he did Parkes senior, 
 who was her second husband. The famous Joe I 
 never saw again, though hearing often of his prefer- 
 ments, performances, and him, till he died, not long 
 since, writing a new * Discovery of Junius,' it was 
 rumoured ; fit-enough task for such a man. Bessy 
 Parkes (of the Eights of Women) is a daughter of 
 his. There were Phipsons, too, * Unitarian people,'
 
 Edward Irving. 255 
 
 very good to me. A young fellow of them, still 
 young though become a pin manufacturer, had been 
 at Erlangen University, and could float along in a 
 light, airy anecdotic fashion by a time. He re- 
 emerged on me four or five years ago, living at Put- 
 ney: head grown white from red, but heart still light ; 
 introducing a chemical son of his, whom I thought 
 not unlikely to push himself in the world by that 
 course. Kennedy of Cambridge, afterwards great as 
 ' master of Shrewsbury school,' was polite to me, but 
 unproductive. Others but why should I speak of 
 them at all ? Accidentally, one Sunday evening, I 
 heard the famous Dr. Hall (of Leicester) preach ; a 
 flabby, puffy, but massy, earnest, forcible-looking 
 man, homme alors celebrel Sermon extempore; 
 text, 'God who cannot lie.' He proved beyond 
 shadow of doubt, in a really forcible but most super- 
 fluous way, that God never lied (had no need to do 
 it, etc.). ' As good prove that God never fought a 
 duel,' sniffed Badams, on my reporting at home. 
 
 Jemmy Belcher was a smirking little dumpy 
 Unitarian bookseller in the Bull-ring, regarded as a 
 kind of curiosity and favourite among these people, 
 and had seen me. One showery day I took shelter 
 in his shop ; picked up a new magazine, found in it 
 a cleverish and completely hostile criticism of my
 
 256 Edward Irving. 
 
 'Wilhelm Meister,' of my Goethe, and self, etc., 
 read it faithfully to the end, and have never set eye 
 on it since. On stepping out my bad spirits did not 
 feel much elevated by the dose just swallowed, but 
 I thought with myself, * This man is perhaps right 
 on some points ; if so, let him be admonitory ! ' 
 And he was so (on a Scotticism, or perhaps two) ; 
 and I did reasonably soon (in not above a couple of 
 hours), dismiss him to the devil, or to Jericho, as an 
 ill-given, unserviceable kind of entity in my course 
 through this world. It was De Quincey, as I often 
 enough heard afterwards from foolish-talking per- 
 sons. * What matter who, ye foolish- talking per- 
 sons ? ' would have been my silent answer, as it 
 generally pretty much was. I recollect, too, how in 
 Edinburgh a year or two after, poor De Quincey, 
 whom I wished to know, was reported to tremble at 
 the thought of such a thing ; and did fly pale as 
 ashes, poor little soul, the first time we actually 
 met. He was a pretty little creature, full of wire- 
 drawn ingenuities, bankrupt enthusiasms, bankrupt 
 pride, with the finest silver-toned low voice, and 
 most elaborate gently-winding courtesies and inge- 
 ; nuities in conversation. ' What wouldn't one give 
 i to have him in a box, and take him out to talk ! ' 
 That was Her criticism of him, and it was right good.
 
 Edward Irving. 257 
 
 A bright, ready, and melodious talker, but in the 
 end an inconclusive and long-winded. One of the 
 smallest man figures I ever saw ; shaped like a pair 
 of tongs, and hardly above five feet in all. When 
 he sate, you would have taken him, by candlelight, 
 for the beautifullest little child ; blue-eyed, spark- 
 ling face, had there not been a something, too, 
 which said ' Eccovi this child has been in hell.' 
 After leaving Edinburgh I never saw him, hardly 
 ever heard of him. His fate, owing to opium etc., 
 was hard and sore, poor fine-strung weak creature, 
 launched so into the literary career of ambition and 
 mother of dead dogs. That peculiar kind of ' meet- 
 ing ' with him was among the phenomena of my 
 then Birmingham (' Bromwich-ham,' * Brumagem,' 
 as you were forced to call it). 
 
 Irving himself, once, or perhaps twice, came to 
 us, in respect of a Scotch Chapel newly set on foot 
 there, and rather in tottering condition. Preacher 
 in it one Crosbie, whom I had seen once at Glasgow 
 in Dr. Chalmers's, a silent guest along with me, 
 whose chief characteristic was helpless dispirit- 
 ment under dyspepsia, which had come upon him, 
 hapless innocent lazy soul. The people were very 
 kind to him, but he was helpless, and I think soon 
 after went away. What became of the Chapel since 
 
 VOL. i. 3
 
 258 Edward Irving. 
 
 I didn't hear. The Rev. Mr. Martin of Kirkcaldy, 
 with his reverend father, and perhaps a sister, 
 passed through Birmingham, bound for London to 
 christen some new child of Irving's ; and being re- 
 ceived in a kind of gala by those Scotch Chapel 
 people, caused me a noisy not pleasant day. Another 
 day, positively painful though otherwise instructive, 
 I had in the Dudley * Black Country ' (which I had 
 once seen from the distance), roving about among 
 the coal and metal mines there, in company or 
 neighbourhood of Mr. Airy, now * Astronomer 
 Royal,' whom I have never seen since. Our party 
 was but of four. Some opulent retired Dissenting 
 Minister had decided on a holiday ovation to Airy, 
 who had just issued from Cambridge as chief of 
 Wranglers and mathematical wonder, and had come 
 to Birmingham on visit to some footlicker whose 
 people lived there. <I will show Airy our mine 
 country,' said the reverend old friend of enlighten- 
 ment, 'and Mr. Or., Airy's footlicker, shall ac- 
 company ! ' That was his happy thought ; and 
 Badams hearing it from him, had suggested me 
 (not quite unknown to him) as a fourth figure. I 
 was ill in health, but thought it right to go. We 
 inspected black furnaces, descended into coal mines ; 
 poked about industriously into nature's and art's
 
 Edward Irving. 259 
 
 sooty arcana all day (with a short recess for lun- 
 cheon), and returned at night in the Reverend's 
 postchaise, thoroughly wearied and disgusted, one 
 of us at least. Nature's sooty arcana was welcome 
 and even pleasant to me ; art's also, more or less. 
 Thus in the belly of the deepest mine, climbing 
 over a huge jingle of new-loosened coal, there met 
 me on the very summit a pair of small cheerful 
 human eyes (face there was none discernible at first, 
 so totally black was it, and so dim were our candles), 
 then a ditto ditto of lips, internally red ; which I 
 perceived, 'with a comic interest, were begging beer 
 from me ! Nor was Airy himself in the least an 
 offence, or indeed sensibly a concern. A hardy 
 little figure, of edacious energetic physiognomy 
 eyes hard, strong, not fine ; seemed three or four 
 years younger than I, and to be in secret serenely, 
 not insolently, enjoying his glory, which I made 
 him right welcome to do on those terms. In fact 
 he and I hardly spoke together twice or thrice, and 
 had as good as no relation to each other. The old 
 Eeverend had taken possession of Airy, and was all 
 day at his elbow. And to me, fatal allotment, had 
 fallen the * footlicker,' one of the foolishest, most 
 conceited, ever-babbling blockheads I can remember 
 to have met.
 
 260 Edward Irrimj. 
 
 What a day of boring (not of the mine strata 
 only !) I felt as if driven half crazy, and mark it 
 to this hour with coal \ 
 
 But enough, and far more than enough, of my 
 Birmingham reminiscences ! Irving himself had 
 been with us. Badams was every few weeks up in 
 London for a day or two. Mrs. Strachey, too, 
 sometimes wrote to me. London was still, in a 
 sense, my headquarters. Early in September (it 
 must have been), I took kind leave of Badams and 
 his daily kind influences ; hoping, both of us, it 
 might be only temporary leave ; and revisited Lon- 
 don, at least passed through it, to Dover and the 
 sea-coast, where Mrs. Strachey had contrived a fine 
 sea party, to consist of herself, with appendages 
 of the Irvings and of me, for a few bright weeks ! 
 I remember a tiny bit of my journey, solitary on 
 the coach-roof, between Canterbury and Bridge. 
 Nothing else whatever of person or of place from 
 Birmingham to that, nor anything immediately 
 onwards from that! The Irvings had a dim but 
 snuggish house, rented in some street near the 
 shore, and I was to lodge with them. Mrs. Stra- 
 chey was in a brighter place near by ; detached new 
 row, called Liverpool Terrace at that time (now 
 buried among streets, and hardly discernible by me
 
 Edward Irving. 201 
 
 last autumn when I pilgrimed thither again after 
 forty-two years). 
 
 Mrs. Strachey had Kitty with her, and was soon 
 expecting her husband. Both households were in 
 full action, or daily getting into it, when I arrived. 
 
 We walked, all of us together sometimes, at 
 other times in threes or twos. We dined often at 
 Mrs. Strachey's ; read commonly in the evenings 
 at Irving's, Irving reader, in Phineas Fletcher's 
 ' Purple Island ' for one thing ; over which Irving 
 strove to be solemn, and Kitty and I rather not, 
 throwing in now and then a little spice of laughter 
 and quiz. I never saw the book again, nor in spite 
 of some real worth it had, and of much half-real 
 laudation, cared greatly to see it. Mrs. Strachey, I 
 suspect, didn't find the sea party so idyllic as her 
 forecast of it. In a fortnight or so Strachey came, 
 and then there was a new and far livelier element of 
 anti-humbug, anti-ennui, which could not improve 
 matters. She determined on sending Strachey, 
 Kitty, and me off on a visit to Paris for ten days, 
 and having the livings all to herself. We went 
 accordingly ; saw Paris, saw a bit of France nothing 
 like so common a feat as now ; and the memory of 
 that is still almost complete, if it were a legiti- 
 mate part of my subject.
 
 262 Edward Irving. 
 
 The journey out, weather fine and novelty 
 awaiting young curiosity at every step, was very 
 pleasant. Montreuil, Noailles, Abbeville, Beauvais, 
 interesting names, start into facts. Sterne's ' Senti- 
 mental Journey ' (especially) is alive in one from 
 the first stage onwards. At Nampont, on the dirty 
 little street, you almost expect to see the dead asfc 
 lying ! Our second night was at Beauvais ; glimpses 
 of the old cathedral next morning went for nothing, 
 was in fact nothing to me ; but the glimpse I had 
 had the night before, as we drove in this way, of the 
 Coffee-house near by, and in it no company but one 
 tall, sashed, epauletted, well-dressed officer striding 
 dismally to and fro, was, and still is, impressive on 
 me, as an almost unrivalled image of human ennui. 
 I sate usually outside, fair Kitty sometimes, and 
 Strachey oftener, sitting by me on the hindward 
 seat. Carriage I think was Kitty's own, and except 
 her maid we had no servants. Postilion could not 
 tell me where ' Crecy ' was, when we were in the 
 neighbourhood. Country in itself, till near Paris, 
 ugly, but all gilded with the light of young lively 
 wonder. Little scrubby boys playing at ball on 
 their scrubby patch of parish green ; how strange ! 
 ' Charity madame,pour unepauvre miserable, qui, 
 die, en a Hen besoin ! ' sang the poor lame beggar
 
 Edward Irving. 263 
 
 girls at the carriage door. None of us spoke French 
 well. Strachey grew even worse as we proceeded, 
 and at length was quite an amusement to hear. At 
 Paris he gave it up altogether, and would speak 
 nothing but English ; which, aided by his vivid 
 looks and gestures, he found in shops and the like 
 to answer much better. ' Quelque chose a boire, 
 monsieur,' said an exceptional respectful postilion 
 at the coach window before quitting. * Nong, vous 
 avez drive devilish slow,' answered Strachey 
 readily, and in a positive half-quizzing tone. This 
 was on the way home, followed by a storm of laughter 
 on our part and an angry blush on the postilion's. 
 
 From about Montmorency (with the shadow of 
 Eousseau), especially from St. Denis to Paris, the 
 drive was quite beautiful, and full of interesting 
 expectation. Magnificent broad highway, great old 
 trees and then potherb gardens on each hand, all 
 silent too in the brilliant October afternoon ; hardly 
 one vehicle or person met, till, on mounting the 
 shoulder of Montmartre, an iron gate, and doua- 
 nier with his brief question before opening, and 
 Paris, wholly and at once, lay at our feet. A huge 
 bowl or deepish saucer of seven miles in diameter ; 
 not a breath of smoke or dimness anywhere ; every 
 roof, and dome, and spire, and chimney-top clearly
 
 264 Edward Irving. 
 
 visible, and the skylights sparkling like diamonds. 
 I have never, since or before, seen so fine a view of 
 a town. I think the fair Miss Kitty was sitting by 
 me ; but the curious sfjeclded straw hats and 
 costumes and physiognomies of the Faubourg St. 
 (fashionable, I forget it at this moment), are the 
 memorablest circumstances to me. "We alighted 
 in the Hue de la Paix (clean and good hotel, not 
 now a hotel) ; admired our rooms, all covered with 
 mirrors; our grates, or grate backs, each with a 
 cupidon cast on it ; and roved about the Boulevards 
 in a happy humour till sunset or later. Decidedly 
 later, in the still dusk, I remember sitting down in 
 the Place Vendome, on the steps of the Column, 
 there to smoke a cigar. Hardly had I arranged 
 myself when a bustle of military was heard round 
 me ; clean, trim, handsome soldiers, blue and white, 
 ranked themselves in some quality, drummers and 
 drums especially faultless, and after a shoulder arms 
 or so, marched off in parties, drums fiercely and 
 finely clangouring their ran-tan-plan. Setting the 
 watch or watches of this human city, as I under- 
 stood it. * Ha ! my tight little fellows in blue, you 
 also have got drums then, none better; and all the 
 world is of kin whether it all agree or not ! ' was 
 my childlike reflection as I silently looked on.
 
 Edward Irving. 265 
 
 Paris proved vastly entertaining to rne. ' Walk- 
 ing about the streets would of itself (as Gray the 
 poet says) have amused rne for weeks.' I met two 
 young Irishmen, who had seen me once at Irving's, 
 who were excellent ciceroni. They were on their 
 way to the liberation of Greece, a totally wildgoose 
 errand as then seemed to me, and as perhaps they 
 themselves secretly guessed, but which entitled 
 them to call on everybody for an 'autograph to 
 our album,' their main employment just now. 
 They were clever enough young fellows, and soon 
 came home again out of Greece. Considerably the 
 taller and cleverer, black-haired and with a strong 
 Irish accent, was called Tennent, whom I never saw 
 again. The milky, smaller blondine figure, cousin 
 to him, was Emerson, whom I met twenty-five years 
 afterwards at Allan Cunningham's as Sir Emerson 
 Tennent, late Governor of Ceylon, and complimented, 
 simpleton that I was ! on the now finely brown 
 colour of his hair ! We have not met since. There 
 was also of their acquaintances a pleasant Mr. 
 Malcolm, ex-lieutenant of the 42nd, native of the 
 Orkney Islands, only son of a clergyman there, who 
 as a young ardent lad had joined Wellington's army 
 at the Siege of St. Sebastian, and got badly wounded 
 (lame for life), at the battle of Thoulouse that same
 
 266 Edward Irving. 
 
 season. Peace coming, he was invalided on half-pay 
 and now lived with his widowed mother in some 
 clean upper floor in Edinburgh on frugal kind and 
 pretty terms, hanging loosely by literature, for which 
 he had some talent. We used to see him in 
 Edinburgh with pleasure and favour, on setting up 
 our own poor household there. He was an amiable, 
 intelligent little fellow, of lively talk and speculation, 
 always cheerful and with a traceable vein of humour 
 and of pathos withal (there being much of sadness 
 and affection hidden in him), all kept, as his natural 
 voice was, in a fine low melodious tone. He wrote 
 in annuals and the like vehicles really pretty verses, 
 and was by degrees establishing something like a 
 real reputation, which might have risen higher and 
 higher in that kind, but his wound still hung about 
 him and he soon died, a year or two after our quitting 
 Edinburgh ; which was the last we saw of him. 
 
 Poor little Malcolm ! He quietly loved his 
 mother very much, his vanished father too, and had 
 pieties and purities very alien to the wild reckless 
 ways of practice and of theory which the army had 
 led him into. Most of his army habitudes (with 
 one private exception, I think, nearly aU) he had 
 successfully washed off from him. To the reprobate 
 * theories ' he had never been but heartily abhorrent.
 
 Edward Irving. 267 
 
 * No God, I tell you, and I will prove it to you on the 
 spot,' said some elder blackguard Lieutenant among 
 a group of them in their tent one evening (a Hano- 
 verian, if I recollect), ' on the spot none.' * How 
 then ? ' exclaimed Ensign Malcolm, much shocked. 
 The Hanoverian lifted his canteen, turned the 
 bottom of it up. * Empty ; you see we have no more 
 rum.' Then holding it aloft into the air, said in a 
 tone of request, * Fill us that ; ' paused an instant, 
 turned it bottom up empty still, and with a victorious 
 glance at his companions, set it down again as a 
 thing that spoke for itself. This was one of 
 Malcolm's war experiences, of which he could 
 pleasantly report a great many. These and the 
 physical agonies and horrors witnessed and felt had 
 given him a complete disgust for war. He could 
 not walk far, always had a marked halt in walking, 
 but was otherwise my pleasantest companion in 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Poor Louis Dix-huit had been * lying in state ' as 
 we passed through St. Denis ; Paris was all plasteretl 
 with placards, ' Le Roi est mort ; vive le Roi ! ' an- 
 nouncing from Chateaubriand a pamphlet of that 
 title. I made no effort to see Chateaubriand, did not 
 see his pamphlet either; in the streets, galleries, 
 cafes, I had enough and to spare. Washington Irving
 
 268 Edward Irving. 
 
 was said to be in Paris, a kind of lion at that time, 
 whose books I somewhat esteemed. One day the 
 Emerson Tennent people bragged that they had en- 
 gaged him to breakfast with us at a certain cafe 
 next morning. We all attended duly, Strachey 
 among the rest, but no Washington came. * Couldn't 
 rightly come,' said Malcolm to me in a judicious 
 aside, as we cheerfully breakfasted with him. I 
 never saw Washington at all, but still have a mild 
 esteem of the good man. To the Louvre Gallery, 
 alone or accompanied, I went often ; got rather 
 faintish good of the pictures there, but at least no 
 harm, being mute and deaf on the subject. Sir 
 Peter Laurie came to me one day; took me to 
 dinner, and plenty of hard-headed London talk. 
 
 Another day, nobody with me and very few in the 
 gallery at all, there suddenly came storming past, 
 with dishevelled hair and large besoms in their hands, 
 which they shoved out on any bit of paper or the like, 
 a row of wild Savoyards, distractedly proclaiming ' Le 
 Eoi ! ' ' le Eoi ! ' and almost oversetting people in 
 their fierce speed to clear the way. Le Eoi, Charles 
 Dix in person, soon appeared accordingly, with three 
 or four attendants, very ugly people, especially one 
 of them (who had blear eyes and small bottle nose, 
 never identifiable to my enquiries since). Charles
 
 Edward Irving. 269 
 
 himself was a swart, slightish, insipid-looking man, 
 but with much the air of a gentleman, insipidly 
 endeavouring to smile and be popular as he walked 
 past ; sparse public indifferent to him, and silent 
 nearly all. I had a real sympathy with the poor 
 gentleman, but could not bring up the least Vive le 
 Roi in the circumstances. We understood he was 
 going to look at a certain picture or painting now 
 on the easel, in a room at the very end (entrance 
 end) of the gallery which one had often enough 
 seen, generally with profane mockery if with any 
 feeling. Picture of, or belonging to, the birth or 
 baptism of what they called the child of miracle 
 (the assassinated Due de Berri's posthumous child, 
 hodie Henri V. in partibus). Picture as yet dis- 
 tressingly ugly, mostly in a smear of dead colours, 
 brown and even green, and with a kind of horror in 
 the subject of it as well. How tragical are men 
 once more ; how merciless withal to one another ! 
 I had not the least real pity for Charles Dix's pious 
 pilgriming to such an object ; the poor mother of it 
 and her immense hopes and pains, I did not even 
 think of then. This was all I ever saw of the 
 legitimate Bourbon line, with which and its tragedies 
 I was to have more concern within the next ten 
 years.
 
 270 Edward Irving. 
 
 My reminiscences of Paris and its old aspects 
 and localities were of visible use to me in writing 
 of the Revolution by and by ; the rest could only be 
 reckoned under the head of amusement, but had its 
 vague profits withal, and still has. Old Legendre, 
 the mathematician (whose Geometry I had translated 
 in Edinburgh) was the only man of real note with 
 whom I exchanged a few words; a tall, bony, grey 
 old man, who received me with dignity and kind- 
 ness ; introduced me to his niece, a brisk little brown 
 gentlewoman who kept house for him ; asked about 
 my stay here, and finding I was just about to go, 
 answered ' Diantre ! ' with an obliging air of regret. 
 His rugged sagacious, sad and stoical old face is still 
 dimly present with me. At a meeting of the Insti- 
 tut I saw and well remember the figure of Trisme- 
 gistus Laplace ; the skirt of his long blue-silk dress- 
 ing gown (such his costume, unique in the place, 
 his age and his fame being also unique) even touched 
 me as he passed on the session's rising. He was 
 tall, thin, clean, serene, his face, perfectly smooth, 
 as a healthy man of fifty's, bespoke intelligence keen 
 and ardent, rather than deep or great. In the eyes 
 was a dreamy smile, with something of pathos in it 
 a ad perhaps something of contempt. The session 
 itself was profoundly stupid; some lout of a pro-
 
 Edward Irving. 2 7 1 
 
 vincial reading about Vers a sole, and big Vauquelin 
 the chemist (noticed by me) fallen sound asleep. 
 Strachey and I went one evening to call upon a M. 
 de Chezy, Professor of Persic, with whom he, or his 
 brother and he, had communicated while in India. 
 We found him high aloft, but in a clean snug 
 apartment, burly, hearty, glad enough to see us, 
 only that !">trachey would speak no French, and in- 
 troduced himself with some shrill sounding sen- 
 tence, the first word of which was clearly salaam. 
 Chezy tried lamely for a pass or two what Persian 
 he could muster, but hastened to get out of it, and to 
 talk even to me, who owned to a little French, since 
 Strachey would own to none. We had rather an 
 amusing twenty minutes ; Chezy a glowing and very 
 emphatic man ; * ce hideux reptile de Langles ' was a 
 phrase he had once used to Strachey's brother, of 
 his chief French rival in the Persic field ! I heard 
 Cuvier lecture one day ; a strong German kind oi 
 face, ditto intelligence as manifested in the lecture, 
 which reminded me of one of old Dr. Gregory's in 
 Edinburgh. I was at a sermon in Ste. Genevieve's ; 
 main audience 500 or so of serving-maids ; preacher 
 a dizened fool in hourglass hat, who ran to and fro 
 in his balcony or pulpit, and seemed much contented 
 with himself; heard another foolish preacher, Protes-
 
 272 Edward Irving. 
 
 taut, at the Oratoire (console-toi, France! on the 
 death of Louis Dix-huit). Looked silently into tne 
 Morgue one morning (infinitely better sermon that 
 stern old greyhaired corpse lying there !) ; looked into 
 the Hotel Dieu and its poor sick-beds once ; was much 
 in the Pont-Neuf region (on tond les chiens et coupe 
 les chats, et va en ville, etc. etc.) ; much in the 
 Palais Royal and adjacencies ; and the night before 
 leaving found I ought to visit one theatre, and by 
 happy accident came upon Talma playing there. A 
 heavy, shortish numb-footed man, face like a warm- 
 ing-pan for size, and with a strange most ponderous 
 yet delicate expression in the big dull-glowing 
 black eyes and it. Incomparably the best actor I 
 ever saw. Play was * OEdipe ' (Voltaire's very first) ; 
 place the Theatre Francais. Talma died within 
 about a year after. 
 
 Of the journey home I can remember nothing 
 but the French part, if any part of it were worth 
 remembering. At Dover I must still have found the 
 Irvings, and poor outskirts and insignificant fractions 
 of solitary dialogues on the Kent shore (far inferior 
 to our old Fife ones) have not yet entirely vanish d ; 
 e.g. strolling together on the beach one evening, 
 we had repeatedly passed at some distance certain 
 building operations, upon which by and by the
 
 Edward Irving. 273 
 
 bricklayers seemed to be getting into much vivacity, 
 crowding round the last gable top ; in fact just about 
 finishing their house then. Irving grasped my arm, 
 said in a low tone of serious emotion, ' See, they 
 are going to bring out their topstone with shouting ! ' 
 I enquired of a poor man what it was ; ' You see, sir, 
 they gets allowance,' answered he ; that was all a 
 silent deglutition of some beer. Irving sank from 
 his Scriptural altitudes; I no doubt profanely 
 laughing rather. There are other lingering films 
 of this sort, but I can give them no date of before or 
 after, and find nothing quite distinct till that of our 
 posting up to London. I should say of the Stracheys 
 posting, who took me as guest, the Irvings being 
 now clearly gone. Canterbury and the (site of the) 
 shrine of St. Thomas I did see, but it must have 
 been before. We had a pleasant drive throughout, 
 weather still sunny though cool, and about nine or 
 ten P.M. of the second day I was set down at a little 
 tavern on Shooter's Hill, where some London mail or 
 diligence soon picked me up, and speedily landed 
 me within reach of hospitable Pentonville, which 
 gave me a welcome like itself. There I must have 
 stayed a few days, and not above a few. 
 
 I was now again in London (probably about the 
 middle of November) ; hither after much sad musing 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 Edward Irving. 
 
 and moping I had decided on returning for another 
 while. My ' Schiller ' (of which I felt then the in- 
 trinsic wretchedness or utter leanness and common- 
 place) was to be stitched together from the ' London 
 Magazine,' and put forth with some trimmings and 
 additions as a book ; 100?. for it on publication in 
 that shape ' (Zero till then), that was the bargain 
 made, and I had come to fulfil that, almost more 
 uncertain than ever about all beyond. I soon got 
 lodgings in Southampton Street, Islington, in Irving's 
 vicinity, and did henceforth with my best diligence 
 endeavour to fulfil that, at a far slower rate than I 
 had expected. I frequently called on Irving (he 
 never or not often on me, which I did not take 
 amiss), and frequently saw him otherwise, but have 
 already written down miscellaneously most of the 
 remembrances that belong to this specific date of 
 months. On the whole, I think now he felt a good 
 deal unhappy, probably getting deeper and deeper 
 sunk in manifold cares of his own, and that our 
 communications had not the old copiousness and 
 flowing freedom; nay, that even since I left for 
 Birmingham there was perhaps a diminution. 
 London ' pulpit popularity,' the smoke of that foul 
 witches' cauldron : there was never anything else 
 to blame. I stuck rigorously to my work, to my
 
 Edward Irving. 275 
 
 Badams regimen, though it did but little for me, 
 but I was sick of body and of mind, in endless 
 dubiety, very desolate and miserable, and the case 
 itself, since nobody could help, admonished me to 
 silence. One day on the road down to Battle Bridge 
 I remember recognising Irving's broad hat, atop amid 
 the tide of passengers, and his little child sitting on 
 his arm, wife probably near by. ' Why should I 
 hurry up ? They are parted from me, the old days 
 are no more,' was my sad reflection in my sad 
 humour. 
 
 Another morning, what was wholesomer and 
 better, happening to notice, as I stood looking out 
 on the bit of green under my bedroom window, a 
 trim and rather pretty hen actively paddling about 
 and picking up what food might be discoverable. 
 ' See,' I said to myself ; ' look, thou fool ! Here is a 
 two-legged creature with scarcely half a thimbleful 
 of poor brains ; thou call'st thyself a man with no- 
 body knows how much brain, and reason dwelling in 
 it ; and behold how the one life is regulated and how 
 the other ! In God's name concentrate, collect what- 
 ever of reason thou hast, and direct it on the one 
 thing needful. Irving, when we did get into inti- 
 mate dialogue, was affectionate to me as ever, and had 
 always to the end a great deal of sense and insight 
 
 T 2
 
 276 Edward Irving. 
 
 into things about him, but he could not much help me ; 
 how could anybody but myself ? By degrees I was 
 doing so, taking counsel of that symbolic HEN ! and 
 settling a good few things. First, and most of all, that 
 I would, renouncing ambitions, ' fine openings,' and 
 the advice of all bystanders and friends, who didn't 
 know ; go home to Annandale, were this work done ; 
 provide myself a place where I could ride, follow 
 regimen, and be free of noises (which were unen- 
 durable) till if possible I could recover a little health. 
 Much followed out of that, all manner of adjust- 
 ments gathering round it. As head of these latter 
 I had offered to let my dearest be free of me, and of 
 any virtual engagement she might think there was ; 
 but she would not hear of it, not of that, the noble 
 soul ! but stood resolved to share my dark lot along 
 with me, be it what it might. Alas, her love was 
 never completely known to me, and how celestial 
 it was, till I had lost her. ' for five minutes 
 more of her ! ' I have often said, since April last, 
 to tell her with what perfect love and admiration, 
 as of the beautifullest of known human souls, I 
 did intrinsically always regard her ! ' But all 
 minutes of the time are inexorably past ; be wise, 
 all ye living, and remember that time passes and 
 does not return,
 
 Edward Irving. 277 
 
 Apart from regular work upon ' Schiller,' I had a 
 good deal of talking with people and social moving 
 about which was not disagreeable. With Allan Cun- 
 ningham I had made ready acquaintance ; a cheerful 
 social man ; ' solid Dumfries mason with a surface 
 polish given him,' was one good judge's definition 
 years afterwards ! He got at once into Nithsdale 
 when you talked with him, which though he was 
 clever and satirical, I didn't very much enjoy. 
 Allan had sense and shrewdness on all points, 
 especially the practical ; but out of Nithsdale, except 
 for his perennial good-humour and quiet cautions 
 (which might have been exemplary to me) was not 
 instructive. I was at the christening of one of 
 Allan's children over in Irving's, where there was 
 a cheery evening, and the Cunninghams to sleep 
 there ; one other of the guests, a pleasant enough 
 Yorkshire youth, going with me to a spare room I 
 could command. My commonest walk was field- 
 wards, or down into the city (by many different old 
 lanes and routes), more rarely by Portland Place 
 (Fitzroy Square and Mrs. Strachey's probably first), 
 to Piccadilly and the West End. One muddy 
 evening there came to me, what enlightened all the 
 mirk and mud, by the Herren Grrafen von Bentincks' 
 servant, a short letter from Goethe in Weimar ! It
 
 278 Edward Irving. 
 
 was in answer to the copy of ' Wilhelm Meister ' which 
 (doubtless with some reverent bit of note), I had de- 
 spatched to him six months ago, without answer till 
 now. He was kind though distant brief, apologised, 
 by his great age (hohen Jahreri) for the delay, till 
 at length the Herren Grafen von Bentincks' passage 
 homewards had operated on him as a hint to do the 
 needful, and likewise to procure for both parties, 
 Herren Grafen and self, an agreeable acquaintance, 
 of which latter naturally neither I nor the Herren 
 Grafen ever heard more. Some twenty years after- 
 wards a certain Lord George Bentinck, whom news- 
 papers called the ' stable minded ' from his previous 
 turf propensities, suddenly quitting all these and 
 taking to statistics and Tory politics, became famous 
 or noisy for a good few months, chiefly by intricate 
 statistics and dull vehemence, so far as I could see, 
 a stupid enough phenomenon for me, till he suddenly 
 died, poor gentleman! I then remembered that 
 this was probably one of the Herren Grafen von 
 Bentinck whose acquaintance I had missed as 
 above. 
 
 One day Irving took me with him on a curious 
 little errand he had. It was a bright summer morn- 
 ing ; must therefore have preceded the Birmingham 
 and Dover period His errand was this A certain
 
 Edward Irving. 279 
 
 loquacious extensive Glasgow publisher ' was in 
 London for several weeks on business, and often 
 came to Irving, wasting (as I used to think) a good 
 deal of his time in zealous discourse about many 
 vague things ; in particular about the villany of 
 common publishers, how for example, on their * half 
 profits system,' they would show the poor authors a 
 printer's account pretending to be paid in full, 
 printer's signature visibly appended, printer having 
 really touched a sum less by 25 per cent., and sic de 
 cceteris. All an arranged juggle to cheat the poor 
 author, and sadly convince him that his moiety was 
 nearly or altogether Zero divided by two ! Irving 
 could not believe it ; denied stoutly on behalf of his 
 own printer, one Bensley, a noted man in his craft, 
 and getting nothing but negatory smiles and kindly 
 but inexorable contradiction, said he would go next 
 morning and see. We walked along somewhere 
 Holbornwards, found Bensley and wife in a bright, 
 quiet, comfortable room, just finishing breakfast ; a 
 fattish, solid, rational, and really amiable-looking 
 pair of people, especially the wife, who had a plump, 
 cheerfully experienced matronly air. By both of 
 whom we, i.e. Irving (for I had nothing to do but 
 
 1 Dr. Chalmers's especially ; had been a schoolmaster ; Collin 
 perhaps his name.
 
 280 Edward Irving. 
 
 be silent) were warmly and honourably welcomed, and 
 constrained at least to sit, since we would do nothing 
 better. Irving with grave courtesy laid the case 
 before Bensley, perhaps showed him his old signa- 
 ture and account, and asked if that was or was not 
 really the sum he had received. Bensley, with body 
 and face writhed uneasily ; evidently loth to lie, but 
 evidently obliged by the laws of trade to do it. 
 * Yes, on the whole, that was the sum ! ' upon which 
 we directly went our ways ; both of us convinced, I 
 believe, though only one of us said so. Irving had a 
 high opinion of men, and was always mortified when 
 he found it in any instance no longer tenable. 
 
 Irving was sorrowfully occupied at this period, 
 as I now perceive, in scanning and surveying the 
 wrong side of that immense popularity, the outer 
 or right side of which had been so splendid and 
 had given rise to such sacred and glorious hopes. 
 The crowd of people flocking round him continued 
 in abated but still superabundant quantity and 
 vivacity ; but it was not of the old high quality 
 any more. The thought that the Christian re- 
 ligion was again to dominate all minds, and the 
 world to become an Eden by his thrice-blessed 
 means, was fatally declaring itself to have been 
 a dream; and he could not consent to believe it
 
 Edward Irving. 281 
 
 such : never he ! That was the secret of his in- 
 ward quasi-desperate resolutions ; out into the wild 
 struggles and clutchings towards the unattainable, 
 the unregainable, which were more and more con- 
 spicuous in the sequel. He was now, I gradually 
 found, listening to certain interpreters of prophecy, 
 thinking to cast his own great faculty into that hope- 
 less quagmire along with them. These and the like 
 resolutions, and the dark humour which was the 
 mother of them, had been on the growing hand 
 during all this first London visit of mine, and were 
 fast coming to outward development by the time I 
 left for Scotland again. 
 
 About the beginning of March 1825 I had at 
 length, after fierce struggling and various disappoint- 
 ments from the delay of others, got my poor business 
 winded up ; ' Schiller ' published, paid for, left to the 
 natural neglect of mankind (which was perfect so 
 far as I ever heard or much cared), and in humble, 
 but condensed resolute and quiet humour was making 
 my bits of packages, bidding my poor adieus, just in 
 act to go. Everybody thought me headstrong and 
 foolish ; Irving less so than others, though he too 
 could have no understanding of my dyspeptic miseries, 
 my intolerable sufferings from noises etc. etc. He was 
 always kind, and spoke hope if personal topics turned
 
 282 Edward Irving. 
 
 up. Perhaps it was the very day before my depar- 
 ture, at least it is the last I recollect of him, we were 
 walking in the streets multifariously discoursing : a 
 dim grey day, but dry and airy. At the corner of 
 Cockspur Street we paused for a moment, meeting Sir 
 John Sinclair (' Statistical Account of Scotland ' etc.), 
 whom I had never seen before and never saw again. 
 A lean old man, tall but stooping, in tartan cloak, 
 face very wrinkly, nose blue, physiognomy vague 
 and with distinction as one might have expected it 
 to be. He spoke to Irving with benignant respect, 
 whether to me at all I don't recollect. A little 
 farther on in Parliament Street, somewhere near the 
 Admiralty (that now is, and perhaps then was), we 
 ascended certain stairs, narrow newish wooden 
 staircase the last of them, and came into a bare, clean, 
 comfortless, official little room (fire gone out), where 
 an elderly official little gentleman was seated within 
 rails, busy in the red-tape line. This was the 
 Honourable Something or other, great in Scripture 
 prophecy ; in which he had started some sublime 
 new idea, well worth prosecuting as Irving had as- 
 sured me. Their mutual greetings were cordial and 
 respectful; and a lively dialogue ensued on pro- 
 phetic matters, especially on the sublime new idea ; 
 I, strictly unparticipant, sitting silently apart till it
 
 Edward Irving. 283 
 
 was done. The Honourable Something had a look 
 of perfect politeness, perfect silliness; his face, 
 heavily wrinkled, went smiling and shuttling about 
 at a wonderful rate ; and in the smile there seemed 
 to me to be lodged a frozen sorrow, as if bordering 
 on craze. On coming out I asked Irving, perhaps 
 too markedly, ' Do- you really think that gentleman 
 can throw any light to you on anything whatever ? ' 
 To which he answered good-naturedly, but in a grave 
 tone, 'Yes, I do.' Of which the fruits were seen before 
 long. This is the last thing I can recollect of Irving in 
 my London visit ; except perhaps some grey shadow 
 of him giving me 'Farewell' with express ' blessing.' 
 I paused some days at Birmingham; got rich 
 gifts sent after me by Mrs. Strachey ; beautiful desk, 
 gold pencil, etc., which were soon Another's, ah me ! 
 and are still here. I saw Manchester too, for the 
 first time (strange bagman ways in the Palace Inn 
 there) ; walked to Oldham ; savage-looking scene of 
 Sunday morning; old schoolfellow of mine, very 
 stupid but very kind, being Curate there. Shot off 
 too over the Yorkshire moors to Marsden, where 
 another boy and college friend of mine was (George 
 Johnston, since surgeon in Gloucester) ; and spent 
 three dingy but impressive days in poking into those 
 mute wildernesses and their rough habitudes and
 
 284 Edward Irving. 
 
 populations. At four o'clock, in my Palace Inn (Boots 
 having forgotten me), awoke by good luck of myself, 
 and saved my place on the coach roof. Remember 
 the Blackburns, Boltons, and their smoke clouds, to 
 right and left grimly black, and the grey March 
 winds ; Lancashire was not all smoky then, but only 
 smoky in parts. Eemember the Bush Inn at Carlisle, 
 and quiet luxurious shelter it yielded for the night, 
 much different from now. (' Betty, a pan o' cooals ! ' 
 shouted the waiter, an Eskdale man by dialect, and 
 in five minutes the trim Betty had done her feat, 
 and your clean sleek bed was comfortably warm). At 
 Ecclefechan, next day, within two miles or so of my 
 father's, while the coach was changing horses, I noticed 
 through the window my little sister Jean earnestly 
 looking up for me ; she, with Jenny, the youngest 
 of us all, was at school in the village, and had come 
 out daily of late to inspect the coach in hope of me, 
 always in vain till this day ; her bonny little blush 
 and radiancy of look when I let down the window 
 and suddenly disclosed myself are still present to 
 me. In four days' time I now (December 2, 1866) 
 hope to see this brave Jean again (now ' Mrs. Ait- 
 ken,' from Dumfries, and a hardy, hearty wife and 
 mother). Jenny, poor little thing, has had her 
 crosses and difficulties, but has managed them well ; 
 and now lives, contented enough and industrious as
 
 Edward Irving. 285 
 
 ever, with husband and three or two daughters, iu 
 Hamilton, Canada West, not far from which are my 
 brother Alick too, and others dear to me. ' Double, 
 double, toil and trouble ' such, with result or with- 
 out it, are our wanderings in this world. 
 
 My poor little establishment at Hoddam Hill * 
 (close by the * Tower of Eepentance,' as if symboli- 
 cally !) I do not mean to speak of here ; a neat com- 
 pact little farm, rent 100., which my father had 
 leased for me, on which was a prettyish-looking cot- 
 tage for dwelling-house (had been the factor's place, 
 who was retiring), and from the windows such a 
 ' view ' (fifty miles in radius, from beyond Tyndale 
 to beyond St. Bees, Sol way Frith, and all the fells 
 to Ingleborough inclusive), as Britain or the world 
 could hardly have matched ! Here the ploughing 
 etc. etc. was already in progress (which I often 
 rode across to see), and here at term day (May 26, 
 1825) I established myself, set up my books and 
 bits of implements and Lares, and took to doing 
 ' German Komance ' as my daily work, ' ten pages 
 daily ' my stint, which, barring some rare accidents, 
 I faithfully accomplished. Brother Alick was my 
 practical /armer; ever-kind and beloved mother, 
 with one of the little girls, was generally there ; 
 
 1 A house with small farm attached, three miles from Main- 
 hill, and visible from the fields at tie back of it.
 
 286 Edward Irving. 
 
 brother John, too, oftenest, who had just taken his 
 degree. These, with a little man and ditto maid, 
 were our establishment. It lasted only one year, 
 owing, I believe, to indistinctness of bargain first of 
 all, and then to arbitrary high-handed temper of 
 our landlord (used to a rather prostrate style of 
 obedience, and not finding it here, but a polite 
 appeal to fair-play instead). One whole summer 
 and autumn were defaced by a great deal of paltry 
 bother on that head, superadded to the others ; and 
 at last, lease of Mainhill, too, being nearly out, it 
 was decided to quit said landlord's territories alto- 
 gether, and so end his controversies with us. 
 
 Next 26th of May we went all of us to Scotsbrig 
 (a much better farm, which was now bidden for and 
 got), and where, as turned out, I continued only a 
 few months, wedded, and to Edinburgh in October 
 following. Ah me ! what a retrospect now ! 
 
 With all its manifold petty troubles, this year at 
 Hoddam Hill has a rustic beauty and dignity to me, 
 and lies now like a not ignoble russet-coated idyll 
 in my memory ; one of the quietest, on the whole, 
 and perhaps the most triumphantly important of my 
 life. I lived very silent, diligent, had long solitary 
 rides (on my wild Irish horse ' Larry,' good for the 
 dietetic part), my meditatings, musings, and reflec-
 
 Edward Irving. 287 
 
 tions were continual ; my thoughts went wandering 
 (or travelling) through eternity, through time, 
 and through space, so far as poor I had scanned 
 or known, and were now to my endless solacement 
 coming back with tidings to me ! This year I found 
 that I had conquered all my scepticisms, agonising 
 doubtings, fearful wrestlings with the foul and vile 
 and soul-murdering Mud-gods of my epoch ; had 
 escaped as from a worse than Tartarus, with all its 
 Phlegethons and Stygian quagmires, and was emerg- 
 ing free in spirit into the eternal blue of ether, 
 where, blessed be heaven ! I have for the spiritual 
 part ever since lived, looking down upon the welter- 
 ings of my poor fellow-creatures, in such multitudes 
 and millions still stuck in that fatal element, and 
 have had no concern whatever in their Puseyisms, 
 ritualisms, metaphysical controversies and cobweb- 
 beries, and no feeling of my own except honest 
 silent pity for the serious or religious part of them, 
 and occasional indignation, for the poor world's sake, 
 at the frivolous secular and impious part, with their 
 universal suffrages, their Nigger emancipations, 
 sluggard and scoundrel Protection societies, and 
 * unexampled prosperities ' for the time being ! 
 What my pious joy and gratitude then was, let the 
 pious soul figure. In a fine and veritable sense, I,
 
 288 Edward Irving. 
 
 poor, obscure, without outlook, almost without 
 worldly hope, had become independent of the world. 
 What was death itself, from the world, to what I 
 had come through ? I understood well what the 
 old Christian people meant by * conversion? by 
 God's infinite mercy to them. I had, in effect, 
 gained an immense victory, and for a number of 
 years had, in spite of nerves and chagrins, u con- 
 stant inward happiness that was quite royal and 
 supreme, in which all temporal evil was transient 
 and insignificant, and which essentially remains 
 with me still, though far oftener eclipsed and lying 
 deeper down than then. Once more, thank Heaven 
 for its highest gift. I then felt, and still feel, end- 
 lessly indebted to Goethe in the business. He, in 
 his fashion, I perceived, had travelled the steep 
 rocky road before me, the first of the moderns. 
 Bodily health itself seemed improving. Bodily 
 health was all I had really lost in this grand spirit- 
 ual battle now gained ; and that, too, I may have 
 hoped would gradually return altogether, which it 
 never did, and was far enough from doing ! Mean- 
 while my thoughts were very peaceable, full of pity 
 and humanity as they had never been before. No- 
 where can I recollect of myself such pious musings, 
 communings silent and spontaneous with Fact and
 
 Edward Irving. 289 
 
 Nature, as in these poor Annandale localities. The 
 sound of the kirk-bell once or twice on Sunday 
 mornings, from Hoddam kirk, about a mile off on 
 the plain below me, was strangely touching, like the 
 departing voice of eighteen hundred years. Frank 
 Dickson at rare intervals called in passing. Nay, 
 once for about ten days my dearest and beautiful lest 
 herself came across out of Nithsdale to 'pay my 
 mother a visit,' when she gained all hearts, and we 
 mounted our swift little horses and careered about ! 
 No wonder I call that year idyllic, in spite of its 
 russet coat. My darling and I were at the Grange 
 (Mrs. Johnston's), at Annan (Mrs. Dickson's), and we 
 rode together to Dumfries, where her aunts and 
 grandmother were, whom she was to pause with on 
 this her road home to Templand. 1 How beautiful, 
 how sad and strange all that now looks ! Her beauti- 
 ful little heart was evidently much cast down, right 
 sorry to part, though we hoped it was but for some 
 short while. I remember the heights of Mousewold, 
 with Dumfries and the granite mountains lying in 
 panorama seven or eight miles off to our left, and 
 what she artlessly yet finely said to me there. Oh, 
 my darling, not Andromache dressed in all the art 
 of a Eacine looks more high and queenly to me, or 
 1 House in Nithsdal* where Misa Urleh's grandfather lived. 
 VOL, I, U
 
 290 Edward Irving. 
 
 is more of a tragic poem than thou and thy noble pil- 
 grimage beside me in this poor thorny muddy world ! 
 I had next to no direct correspondence with 
 Irving ; a little note or so on business, nothing 
 more. Nor was Mrs. Montague much more instruc- 
 tive on that head, who wrote me high-sounding 
 amiable things which I could not but respond to 
 more or less, though dimly aware of their quality. 
 Nor did the sincere and ardent Mrs. Strachey, who 
 wrote seldomer, almost ever touch upon Irving ; but 
 by some occasional unmelodious clang in all the 
 newspapers (twice over I think in this year), we 
 could sufficiently and with little satisfaction con- 
 strue his way of life. Twice over he had leaped the 
 barrier, and given rise to criticism of the customary 
 idle sort, loudish universally, and nowhere accu- 
 rately just. Case first was of preaching to the 
 London Missionary Society (' Missionary ' I will call 
 it, though it might be ' Bible ' or another). On 
 their grand anniversary these people had appointed 
 to him the honour of addressing them, and were 
 numerously assembled expecting some flourishes of 
 eloquence and flatteries to their illustrious divinely- 
 blessed Society, ingeniously done and especially with 
 fit brevity, dinner itself waiting, I suppose, close in 
 the rear. Irving emerged into his speaking place
 
 Edward Irving. 291 
 
 at the due moment, but instead of treating men 
 and office-bearers to a short comfortable dose of 
 honey and butter, opened into strict sharp enquiries, 
 Ehadamanthine expositions of duty and ideal, issuing 
 perhaps in actual criticism and admonition, gall and 
 vinegar instead of honey ; at any rate keeping the 
 poor people locked up there for ' above two hours ' 
 instead of one hour or less, with dinner hot at the 
 end of it. This was much criticised ; * plainly wrong, 
 and produced by love of singularity and too much 
 pride in oneself,' voted everybody. For, in fact, a 
 man suddenly holding up the naked inexorable Ideal 
 in face of the clothed, and in England generally 
 plump, comfortable, and pot-bellied Keality, is doing 
 an unexpected and a questionable thing ! 
 
 The next escapade was still worse. At some 
 public meeting, of probably the same ' Missionary 
 Society,' Irving again held up his ideal, I think not 
 without murmurs from former sufferers by it, and 
 ended by solemnly putting down, not his name to 
 the subscription list, but an actual gold watch, 
 which he said had just arrived to him from his 
 beloved brother lately dead in India. 1 That of the 
 
 1 This brother was John, the eldest of the three, an Indian 
 army surgeon, whom I remember once meeting on a ' common 
 stair ' in Edinburgh, on return I suppose from some call on a
 
 292 Edward Irving. 
 
 gold watch tabled had in reality a touch of rash 
 ostentation, and was bitterly crowed over by the 
 able editors for a time. On the whole one could 
 gather too clearly that Irving's course was beset 
 with pitfalls, barking dogs, and dangers and diffi- 
 culties unwarned of, and that for one who took so 
 little counsel with prudence he perhaps carried his 
 head too high. I had a certain harsh kind of 
 sorrow about poor Irving, and my loss of him (and 
 his loss of me on such poor terms as these seemed 
 to be !) but I carelessly trusted in his strength 
 against whatever mistakes and impediments, and 
 felt that for the present it was better to be absolved 
 from corresponding with him. 
 
 That same year, late in autumn, he was at An- 
 nan, only for a night and a day, returning from 
 some farther journey, perhaps to Glasgow or Edin- 
 burgh, and had to go on again for London next day. 
 I rode down from Hoddam Hill before nightfall; 
 found him sitting in the snug little parlour beside 
 his father and mother, beautifully domestic. I 
 think it was the last time I ever saw those good old 
 people. We sate only a few minutes, my thoughts 
 
 comrade higher up ; a taller man than even Edward, and with a 
 blooming, placid, not very intelligent face, and no squint, whom 
 I easily recognised by family likeness, but never saw again or 
 before.
 
 Edward Irving. 293 
 
 sadly contrasting the beautiful affectionate safety 
 here, and the wild tempestuous hostilities and perils 
 yonder. He left his blessing to each, by name, in a 
 low soft voice. There was something almost tragi- 
 cal to me as he turned round (hitting his hat on 
 the little door lintel), and next moment was on the 
 dark street, followed only by me. We stept over to 
 Robert Dickson's, his brother-in-law's, and sat there, 
 still talking, for perhaps an hour. Probably his 
 plan of journey was to catch the Glasgow-London 
 mail at Grretna, and to walk thither, the night 
 being dry and time at discretion. 
 
 Walk I remember he did, and talk in the in- 
 terim (three or at most four of us now), not in the 
 least downhearted. Told us, probably in answer to 
 some question of mine, that the projected * London 
 University' (now of Grower Street) seemed to be 
 progressing towards fulfilment, and how at some 
 meeting Poet Campbell, arguing loudly for a purely 
 secular system, had, on sight of Irving entering, at 
 once stopt short, and in the politest way he could, 
 sate down, without another word on the subject * It 
 will be unreligious, secretly anti-religious all the 
 same,' said Irving to us. Whether he reported ol 
 the projected Athenaeum Club (dear to Basil Mon- 
 tague, among others), I don't recollect ; probably not|
 
 294 Edward Irving. 
 
 as he or I had little interest in that. When the 
 time had come for setting out, and we were all on 
 foot, he called for his three little nieces, having 
 their mother by him ; had them each successively 
 set standing on a chair, laid his hand on the head 
 first of one, with a ' Mary Dickson, the Lord bless 
 you ! ' then of the next by name, and of the next, 
 ' The Lord bless you ! ' in a sad and solemn tone 
 (with something of elaborate noticeable in it, too), 
 which was painful and dreary to me. A dreary visit 
 altogether, though an unabatedly affectionate on 
 both sides. In what a contrast, thought I, to the 
 old sunshiny visits, when Glasgow was headquarters, 
 and everybody was obscure, frank to his feelings, 
 and safe ! Mrs. Dickson, I think, had tears in her 
 eyes. Her, too, he doubtless blessed, but without 
 hand on head. Dickson and the rest of us escorted 
 him a little way ; would then take leave in the com- 
 mon form ; but even that latter circumstance I do 
 not perfectly recall, only the fact of our escorting, 
 and before the visit and after it all is now fallen dark. 
 Irving did not re-emerge for many months, and 
 found me then in very greatly changed circum- 
 stances. His next visit was to U8 at Comley Bank, 1 
 
 1 Where Carlyle and his wife lived for the first eighteen 
 months after their marriage.
 
 Edward Irving. 295 
 
 Edinburgh, not to me any longer ! It was probably 
 in spring, 1827, a visit of only half an hour, more 
 resembling a * call ' from neighbour on neighbour. 
 I think it was connected with Scripture prophecy 
 work, in which he was now deep. At any rate, he 
 was now preaching and communing on something or 
 other to numbers of people in Edinburgh, and we had 
 heard of him for perhaps a week before as shiningly 
 busy in that way, when in some interval he made 
 this little run over to Comley Bank and us. He 
 was very friendly, but had a look of trouble, of 
 haste, and confused controversy and anxiety, sadly 
 unlike his old good self. In dialect, too, and 
 manner, things had not bettered themselves, but 
 the contrary. He talked with an undeniable self- 
 consciousness, and something which you could not 
 but admit to be religious mannerism. Never quite 
 recovered out of that, in spite of our, especially of 
 her, efforts while he stayed. At parting he proposed 
 * to pray ' with us, and did, in standing posture, ig- 
 noring or conscientiously defying our pretty evident 
 reluctance. ' Farewell ! ' he said soon after ; * I must 
 go then and suffer persecution as my fathers have 
 done.' Much painful contradiction he evidently had 
 from the world about him, but also much zealous 
 favour; and was going that same evening to a
 
 296 Edward Irving. 
 
 public dinner given in honour of him, as we and 
 everybody knew. 
 
 This was, I think, the nadir of my poor Irving, 
 veiled and hooded in these miserable manifold crapes 
 and formulas, so that his brave old self never once 
 looked fairly through, which had not been nor was 
 again quite the case in any other visit or interview. 
 It made one drearily sad. ' Dreary,' that was the 
 word ; and we had to consider ourselves as not a little 
 divorced from him, and bidden ' shift for yourselves.' 
 
 We saw him once again in Scotland, at Craigen- 
 puttoch, 1 and had him for a night, or I almost think 
 for two, on greatly improved terms. He was again 
 on some kind of church business, but it seemed to 
 be of cheerfuller and wider scope than that of Scrip- 
 tural prophecy last time. Glasgow was now his goal, 
 with frequent preaching as he went along, the 
 regular clergy actively countenancing. I remember 
 dining with him at our parish minister's, good Mr. 
 Bryden's, with certain Reverends of the neighbour- 
 hood (the Dow of * Irongray ' one of them, who 
 afterwards went crazy on the ' Gift of Tongues ' 
 affair). I think it must have been from Bryden's 
 that I brought him up to Craigenputtoch, where he 
 
 1 A lonely house on the moor, at the head of Nithsdale, ten 
 miles from Dumfries.
 
 Edward Irving. 297 
 
 was quite alone with us, and franker and happier 
 than I had seen him for a long time. It was beau- 
 tiful summer weather, pleasant to saunter in with 
 old friends in the safe green solitudes, no sound 
 audible but that of our own voices, and of the birds 
 and woods. He talked to me of Henry Drummond 
 as of a fine, a great, evangelical, yet courtly and 
 indeed universal gentleman, whom prophetic studies 
 had brought to him, whom I was to know on my 
 next coming to London, more joy to me ! We had 
 been discoursing of religion with mildly worded but 
 entire frankness on my part as usual, and something 
 I said had struck Irving as unexpectedly orthodox, 
 who thereupon ejaculated, 'Well, I am right glad to 
 hear that, and will not forget it when it may do you 
 good with one whom I know of; ' with Henry Drum- 
 mond namely, which had led him into that topic, 
 perhaps not quite for the first time.. There had been 
 big * prophetic conferences ' etc. held at Drum- 
 mond's house (Albury, Surrey), who continued ever 
 after an ardent Irvingite, and rose by degrees in the 
 4 Tongues ' business to be hierophant, and chief over 
 Irving himself. He was far the richest of the sect, 
 and alone belonged to the aristocratic circles, abun- 
 dant in speculation as well as in money ; a sharp, 
 elastic, haughty kind of man; had considerable
 
 298 Edward Irving. 
 
 ardour, disorderly force of intellect and character, 
 and especially an insatiable love of shining and 
 figuring. In a different element I had afterwards 
 plentiful knowledge of Henry Drummond, and if I 
 got no good of him got also no mischief, which 
 might have been extremely possible. 
 
 We strolled pleasantly, in loose group, Irving 
 the centre of it, over the fields. I remember an 
 excellent little portraiture of Methodism from him 
 on a green knoll where we had loosely sat down. 
 'Not a good religion, sir,' said he, confidentially 
 shaking his head in answer to my question ; ' far too 
 little of spiritual conscience, far too much of tempo- 
 ral appetite; goes hunting and watching after its 
 own emotions, that is, mainly its own nervous sys- 
 tem, ; an essentially sensuous religion, depending on 
 the body, not on the soul ! ' * Fit only for a gross 
 and vulgar-minded people,' I perhaps added; 'a 
 religion so called, and the essence of it principally 
 cowardice and hunger, terror of pain and appetite 
 for pleasure both carried to the infinite ; ' to which 
 he would sorrowfully assent in a considerable degree. 
 My brother John, lately come home from Germany, 
 said to me next day, ' That was a pretty little 
 Schilderung (portraiture) he threw off for us, that oi 
 the Methodists, wasn't it ? '
 
 Edward Irving. 299 
 
 At Dunscore, in the evening, there was sermon 
 and abundant rustic concourse, not in the kirk but 
 round it in the kirkyard for convenience of room. 
 I attended with most of our people (one of us not 
 busy she at home 'field marshalling,' the noble 
 little soul !) I remember nothing of sermon or 
 subject, except that it went flowingly along like true 
 discourse, direct from the inner reservoirs, and that 
 everybody seemed to listen with respectful satis- 
 faction. We rode pleasantly home in the dusk, 
 and soon afterwards would retire, Irving having to 
 * catch the Glasgow coach ' early next day. Next 
 day, correct to time, he and I were on horseback 
 soon after breakfast, and rode leisurely along to- 
 wards Auldgirth Bridge, some ten miles from us, 
 where the coach was to pass. Irving's talk, or what 
 of it I remember, turned chiefly, and in a cheerful 
 tone, upon touring to the Continent, a beautiful six 
 weeks of rest which he was to have in that form 
 (and I to be taken with him as dragoman, were it 
 nothing more !), which I did not at the time believe 
 in, and which was far enough from ever coming. On 
 nearing the goal he became a little anxious about 
 his coach, but we were there in perfect time, ' still 
 fifteen minutes to spare,' and stept into the inn to 
 wait over a real, or (on my part), theoretic glass ol
 
 3OO Edward Irving. 
 
 ale. Irving was still but midway in his glass when 
 the coach, sooner than expected, was announced. 
 * Does not change here, changes at Thornhill ! ' so 
 that there was not a moment to be lost. Irving 
 sprang hastily to the coach roof (no other seat left), 
 and was at once bowled away, waving me his kind 
 farewell, and vanishing among the woods. This was 
 probably the last time I ever had Irving as my 
 guest ; nay, as guest for nights or even a night it 
 was probably the first time. In Scotland I never 
 saw him again. Our next meeting was in London, 
 autumn of the year 1831. 
 
 By that time there had been changes both with 
 him and me. With him a sad-enough change, 
 namely, deposition from the Scottish Established 
 Kirk, which he felt to be a sore blow, though to me 
 it seemed but the whiff of a telum imbelle for such 
 a man. What the particulars of his heresy were I 
 never knew, or have totally forgotten. Some doc- 
 trine he held about the human nature of the Divine 
 Man ; that Christ's human nature was liable to sin 
 like our own, and continually tempted thereto, 
 which by His divine nobleness He kept continually 
 perfect and pure from sin. This doctrine, which as 
 an impartial bystander, I, from Irving's point of 
 view and from my own, entirely assented to, Irving
 
 Edward Irving. 301 
 
 had by voice and pen been publishing, and I re- 
 member hearing vaguely of its being much can- 
 vassed up and down, always with impatience and a 
 boundless contempt, when I did hear of it. ' The 
 gig of respectability again ! ' I would say or think 
 to myself. ' They consider it more honourable to 
 their Supreme of the world to have had his work 
 done for him than to have done it himself. Flunkeys 
 irredeemable, carrying their plush into highest 
 heaven ! ' This I do remember, but whether this 
 was the damning heresy, this or some other, I do 
 not now know. Indeed, my own grief on the matter, 
 and it had become a chronic dull and perennial 
 grief, was that such a soul had anything to do with 
 * heresies ' and mean puddles of that helpless sort, 
 and was not rather working in his proper sphere, 
 infinite spaces above all that ! Deposed he certainly 
 was, the fact is still recorded in my memory, and by 
 a kind of accident I have the approximate date of it 
 too, Allan Cunningham having had a public dinner 
 given him in Dumfries, at which I with great effort 
 attended, and Allan's first talk to me on meeting 
 having been about Irving's late troubles, and about 
 my own soon coming to London with a MS. book in 
 my pocket, with ' Sartor Kesartus ' namely ! The 
 whole of which circumstances have naturally im-
 
 302 Edward Irving. 
 
 printed themselves on me, while so much else has 
 faded out. 
 
 The first genesis of ' Sartor ' I remember well 
 enough, and the very spot (at Templand) where the 
 notion of astonishment at clothes first struck me. 
 The book had taken me in all some nine months, 
 which are not present now, except confusedly and 
 in mass, but that of being wearied with the fluctua- 
 tions of review work, and of having decided on Lon- 
 don again, with ' Sartor ' as a book to be offered 
 there, is still vivid to me ; vivid above all that 
 dinner to Allan, whither I had gone not against my 
 deliberate will, yet with a very great repugnance, 
 knowing and hating the multiplex bother of it, and 
 that I should have some kind of speech to make. 
 ' Speech ' done, however (taliter qualiter, some 
 short rough words upon Burns, which did well 
 enough), the thing became not unpleasant, and I 
 still well remember it all. Especially how at length, 
 probably near midnight, I rose to go, decisively re- 
 sisting all invitations to * sleep at Dumfries ; ' must 
 and would drive home (knowing well who was wait- 
 ing for me there !) and drove accordingly, with only 
 one circumstance now worth mention. 
 
 Dumfries streets, all silent, empty, were lying 
 clear as day in the purest moonlight, a very beauti-
 
 Edward Irving. 303 
 
 fill and shiny midnight, when I stept down with 
 some one or two for escort of honour, got into my 
 poor old gig brother Alick's gift or procurement to 
 me and with brief farewell rattled briskly away. 
 I had sixteen good miles ahead, fourteen of them 
 parish road, narrower than highway, but otherwise 
 not to be complained of, and the night and the 
 sleeping world seemed all my own for the little 
 enterprise. A small black mare, nimble, loyal, wise, 1 
 this was all my team. Soon after leaving the high- 
 way, or perhaps it was almost before, for I was well 
 wrapt up, warm enough, contented to be out of my 
 affair, wearied too with so much noise and sipping 
 of wine, I too, like the world, had fallen sound 
 asleep, must have sat in deep perfect sleep (prob- 
 ably with the reins hung over the whip and its 
 case), for about ten miles ! There were ascents, 
 descents, steep enough, dangerous fenceless parts, 
 narrow bridges with little parapet (especially one 
 called 'rowting,' i.e. bellowing or roaring, 'Brig,' 
 spanning a grand loud cataract in quite an intricate 
 way, for there was abrupt turn just at the end of it 
 with rapid descent, and wrong road to be avoided) ; 
 
 1 Whom I well remember. 'As useful a beast,' said my dear 
 mother once, in fine expressive Scotch, as we drove together, 'as 
 ever one little skin covered.'
 
 306 Edward Irving. 
 
 reading it. Seldom was a cheerfuller evening at 
 Craigenputtoch. Margaret stayed perhaps a fort- 
 night, quietly cheerful all the time, but was judged 
 (by a very quick eye in such things), to be still far 
 from well. She sickened again in March or April 
 next, on some cold or accident, grew worse than ever, 
 herself now falling nearly hopeless. ' Cannot stand 
 a second bout like last year,' she once whispered to 
 one of her sisters. We had brought her to Dum- 
 fries in the hope of better medical treatment, which 
 was utterly vain. Mother and sister Mary waited 
 on her with trembling anxiety ; I often there. Few 
 days before the end my Jeannie (in the dusk of 
 such a day of gloomy hurlyburly to us all !) carried 
 her on her knees in a sedan to some suburban new 
 garden lodging we had got (but did not then tell 
 me what the dying one had said to her). In fine, 
 towards midnight June 21-22, I alone still up, 
 an express from Dumfries rapped on my window. 
 * Grown worse ; you and your brother wanted 
 yonder ! ' Alick and I were soon on horseback, 
 rode diligently through the slumbering woods ever 
 memorable to me that night, and its phenomena of 
 moon and sky ! found all finished hours ago, only a 
 weeping mother and sister left, with whom neither 
 of us could help weeping. Poor Alick's face, when I
 
 Edward Irving. 307 
 
 met him at the door with such news (he had stayed 
 behind me getting rid of the horses), the mute 
 struggle, mute and vain, as of the rugged rock not 
 to dissolve itself, is still visible to me. Why do I 
 evoke these bitter sorrows and miseries which have 
 mercifully long lain as if asleep ? I will not farther. 
 That day, June 22, 1830, full of sacred sorrow and 
 of paltry botheration of business for we had, after 
 some hours and a little consultation, sent Mary and 
 my mother home is to be counted among the pain- 
 fullest of my life ; and in the evening, having at 
 last reached the silence of the woods, I remember 
 fairly lifting up my voice and weeping aloud a long 
 time. 
 
 All this has little to do with Irving, little even 
 with the journey I was now making towards him, 
 except that in the tumultuous agitations of the 
 latter it came all in poignant clearness and com- 
 pleteness into my mind again, and continued with 
 me in the background or the foreground during most 
 of the time I was in London. 
 
 From Whitehaven onwards to Liverpool, amid 
 the noise and jostle of a crowd of high-dressed 
 vulgar-looking people who joined us there, and with 
 their * hot brandies,' dice-boxes, etc., down below, 
 and the blaring of brass bands, and idle babblers and 
 x 2
 
 Edward Irving. 
 
 worshippers of the nocturnal picturesque, made deck 
 and cabin almost equally a delirium, this, all this 
 of fourteen months ago, in my poor head and heart, 
 was the one thing awake, and the saturnalia round 
 it a kind of mad nightmare dream. At London too, 
 perhaps a week or so after my arrival, somebody had 
 given me a ticket to see Macready, and stepping out 
 of the evening sun I found myself in Drury Lane 
 Theatre, which was all darkened, carefully lamp-lit, 
 play just beginning or going to begin. Out of my 
 gratis box front box on the lower tier I sat gazing 
 into that painted scene and its mimings, but heard 
 nothing, saw nothing ; her green grave and Eccle- 
 fechan silent little kirkyard far away, and how the 
 evening sun at this same moment would be shining 
 there, generally that was the main thing I saw or 
 thought of, and tragical enough that was, without 
 any Macready ! Of Macready that time I remember 
 nothing, and suppose I must have come soon away. 
 
 Irving was now living in Judd Street, New 
 Koad, a bigger, much better old house than the 
 former new one, and much handier for the new 
 f Caledonian Chapel,' which stood spacious and 
 grand in Regent Square, and was quite dissevered 
 from Hatton Garden and its concerns. I stept over 
 to him on the evening of my arrival ; found him
 
 Edward Irving. 309 
 
 sitting quiet and alone, brotherly as ever in his 
 reception of me. Our talk was good and edifying. 
 
 (Mr. Carlyle's MS. is here interrupted. Early 
 in December 1866 he went to Men tone, where he 
 remained for several months. December 27 he re- 
 sumes in the new environment.) l 
 
 He was by this time deep in prophecy and other 
 aberrations, surrounded by weak people, mostly 
 echoes of himself and his inaudible notions ; but he 
 was willing to hear me too on secularities, candid 
 like a second self in judging of what one said in the 
 way of opinion, and wise and even shrewd in regard 
 to anything of business if you consulted him on that 
 side. He objected clearly to my Reform Bill no- 
 tions, found Democracy a thing forbidden, leading 
 down to outer darkness ; I, a thing inevitable, and 
 
 1 Ceased in London perhaps three weeks ago, mere hubbub 
 and uncertainty intervening ; begins again at Mentone on the 
 Riviera Occidentals, whither I have been pushed and pulled in 
 the most unheard of way, Professor Tyndall, Lady Ashburton, 
 friends, foes, all conspiring, a journey like ' chaos come again, ' and 
 an arrival and a continuance hitherto still liker ditto. Wakeful 
 nights each, especially the one just gone ; in which strange cir- 
 cumstances bright sun shining, blue sea faintly murmuring, 
 orange groves glowing out of window, Mentone hidden, and 
 Ventimiglia Cape in view, all earth a kind of Paradise, inhabi- 
 tants a kind of quasi-Satan I endeavour to proceed the best I 
 can.
 
 3 1 o Edward Irving. 
 
 obliged to lead whithersoever it could. We had 
 
 several colloquies on that subject, on which, though 
 
 iny own poor convictions are widened, not altered, I 
 
 should now have more sympathy with his than was 
 
 then the case. We also talked on religion and 
 
 Christianity * evidences,' our notions of course more 
 
 divergent than ever. ' It is sacred, my friend, we 
 
 can call it sacred ; such a Civitas Dei as was never 
 
 built before, wholly the grandest series of work ever 
 
 hitherto done by the human soul ; the highest God, 
 
 doubt it not, assenting and inspiring all along.' 
 
 This I remember once saying plainly, which was not 
 
 an encouragement to prosecute the topic. We were 
 
 in fact hopelessly divided, to what tragical extent 
 
 both of us might well feel ! But something still 
 
 remained, and this we (he, at least, for I think 
 
 in friendship he was the nobler of the two) were 
 
 only the more anxious to retain and make good. I 
 
 recollect breakfasting with 'him, a strange set of 
 
 ignorant conceited fanatics forming the body of the 
 
 party, and greatly spoiling it for me. Irving's own 
 
 kindness was evidently in essence unabated ; how 
 
 sorrowful, at once provoking and pathetic, that I or 
 
 he could henceforth get so little good of it ! 
 
 We were to have gone and seen Coleridge to- 
 gether, had fixed a day for that object ; but the day
 
 Edward Irving. 3 1 1 
 
 proved a long deluge, no stirring out possible, and 
 we did not appoint another. I never saw Coleridge 
 more. He died the year after our final removal to 
 London, a man much pitied and recognised by me ; 
 never excessively esteemed in any respect, and 
 latterly, on the intellectual or spiritual side, less 
 and less. The father of Puseyism and of much vain 
 phantasmal moonshine which still vexes this poor 
 earth, as I have already described him. Irving and 
 I did not, on the whole, see much of one another 
 during this * Sartor Kesartus' visit, our circum- 
 stances, our courses and employments were so alto- 
 gether diverse. Early in the visit he walked me to 
 Belgrave Square to dine with Henry Drummond ; 
 beautiful promenade through the crowd and stir of 
 Piccadilly, which was then somewhat of a novelty to 
 me. Irving, I heard afterwards, was judged, from 
 the broad hat, brown skin, and flowing black hair to 
 be in all probability the one-string fiddler Paga- 
 nini a tall, lean, taciturn abstruse-looking figure 
 who was then, after his sort, astonishing the idle of 
 mankind. Henry Drummond house all in summer 
 deshabille, carpets up, etc. -received us with abun- 
 dance of respect, and of aristocratic pococurantism 
 withal (the latter perhaps rather in a conscious con- 
 dition) ; gave us plenty of talk, and received well
 
 312 Edward Irving. 
 
 what was given ; chiefly on the rotten social state 
 of England, on the ' Swing ' outrages (half the year 
 raising wheat and the other half burning it), which 
 were then alarming everybody all rather in epi- 
 grammatic exaggerative style, and with * wisdom' 
 sometimes sacrificed to ' wit.' Grave us, in short, a 
 pleasant enough dinner and evening, but left me, 
 as Mazzini used to describe it, ' cold.' A man of 
 elastic, pungent decisive nature, full of fine quali- 
 ties and capabilities, but well nigh cracked by an 
 enormous conceit of himself, which, both as pride 
 and vanity (in strange partnership mutually agree- 
 able), seemed to pervade every fibre of him, and 
 render his life a restless inconsistency. That was 
 the feeling he left in me ; nor did it alter afterwards 
 when I saw a great deal more of him, without sen- 
 sible increase or diminution of the little love he 
 at first inspired in me. Poor Henry ! he shot fiery 
 arrows about too, but they told nowhere. I was 
 never tempted to become more intimate with him, 
 though he now and then seemed willing enough : 
 ex nihilo nihil fit. He, without unkindness of in- 
 tention, did my poor Irving a great deal of ill ; me 
 never any, such my better luck. His last act was, 
 about eight or nine years ago, to ask us both ! out to 
 1 Carlyle and his wife.
 
 Edward Irving. 313 
 
 Albury on a mistaken day, when he himself was not 
 there ! Happily my darling had at the eleventh 
 hour decided not to go, so that the ugly confusion 
 fell all on me, and in a few months more Henry ' 
 was himself dead, and no mistake possible again. , 
 Albury, the ancient Earl of Arundel's, the recent 
 scene of prophet conferences etc., I had seen for 
 the first and most likely for the last time. My 
 double-goer, T. Carlyle, < Advocate,' who had for 
 years been ' Angel ' there, was lately dead ; and the 
 numerous mistakes, wilful and involuntary, which 
 he, from my fifteenth year onwards, had occasioned 
 me, selling his pamphlets as mine, getting my 
 letters as his, and vice versa ; nay, once or more 
 with some ambassador at Berlin dining in my 
 stead ; foolish vain fellow, who called me Antichrist 
 withal in his serious moments ! were likewise at an 
 end. All does end. 
 
 My business lay with the bookseller or publish- 
 ing world; my chief intercourse was with the 
 lighter literary figures : in part, too, with the politi- 
 cal, many of whom I transiently saw at Jeffrey's 
 (who was then Lord Advocate), and all of whom I 
 might hear of through him. Not in either kind was 
 my appetite very keen, nor did it increase by what 
 it fed on. Bather a ' feast of shells,' as perhaps I
 
 314 Edward Irving. 
 
 then defined it ; people of biggish names, but of 
 substance mainly spilt and wanting. All men were 
 full of the Reform Bill ; nothing else talked of, 
 written of, the air loaded with it alone, which occa- 
 sioned great obstruction in the publishing of my 
 1 Sartor,' I was told. On that latter point I could 
 say much, but will forbear. Few men ever more 
 surprised me than did the great Albemarle Street 
 Murray, who had published for Byron and all the 
 great ones for many years, and to whom Jeffrey 
 sent me recommended. Stupider man than the 
 great Murray, in look, in speech, in conduct, in 
 regard to this poor ' Sartor ' question, I imagined I 
 had seldom or never seen ! Afterwards it became 
 apparent to me that partly he was sinking into 
 the heaviness of old age, and partly, still more im- 
 portant, that in regard to this particular ' Sartor ' 
 question his position was an impossible one ; posi- 
 tion of a poor old man endeavouring to answer yes 
 and no ! I had striven and pushed for some weeks 
 with him and others on those impossible principles, 
 till at length discovering how the matter stood, I 
 with brevity demanded back my poor MS. from 
 Murray, received it with some apologetic palaver 
 (enclosing an opinion from his taster, which was 
 subsequently printed in our edition), and much hope,
 
 Edward Irving. 315 
 
 etc. etc. ; locked it away into fixity of silence for 
 the present (my Murray into ditto for ever), and 
 decided to send for the dear one I had left behind 
 me, and let her too see London, which I knew she 
 would like, before we went farther. Ah me ! this 
 sunny Riviera which we sometimes vaguely thought 
 of, she does not see along with me, and my thoughts 
 of her here are too sad for words. I will write no 
 more to-day. Oh, my darling, my lost darling, may 
 the great God be good to thee ! Silence, though ! 
 and ' hope ' if I can ! 
 
 My Jeannie came about the end of September. 
 Brother John, by industry of hers and mine (hers 
 chiefly), acting on an opportunity of Lord Advocate 
 Jeffrey's, had got an appointment for Italy (travel- 
 ling physician, by which he has since made abund- 
 ance of money, and of work may be said to have 
 translated Dante's * Inferno,' were there nothing 
 more !) We shifted from our uncomfortable lodging 1 
 into a clean, quiet and modestly comfortable one 
 in Ampton Street (same St. Pancras region), and 
 there, ourselves two brother John being off to 
 Italy set up for the winter under tolerable omens. 
 My darling was, as ever, the guardian spirit of the 
 
 1 At Irving's youngest brother George's ; an incipient sur- 
 geon, amiable and clear superficially, who soon after died.
 
 316 Edward Irving. 
 
 establishment, and made all things bright and 
 smooth. The daughter of the house, a fine young 
 Cockney specimen, fell quite in love with her, 
 served like a fairy. Was next year, long after we 
 were gone, for coming to us at Craigenputtoch to be 
 ' maid of all work ' an impossible suggestion ; and 
 did, in effect, keep up an adoring kind of inter- 
 course till the fatal day of April last, never changing 
 at all in her poor tribute of love. A fine outpouring 
 of her grief and admiring gratitude, written after 
 that event, 1 was not thrown into the fire half-read, 
 or unread, but is still lying in a drawer at Chelsea, 
 or perhaps adjoined to some of the things I was 
 writing there, as a genuine human utterance, not 
 without some sad value to me. My poor little 
 woman had often indifferent health, which seemed 
 rather to worsen than improve while we continued ; 
 but her spirit was indefatigable, ever cheery, full of 
 grace, ingenuity, dexterity ; and she much enjoyed 
 London, and the considerable miscellany of people 
 that came about us Charles Buller, John Mill, 
 several professed ' admirers ' of mine (among whom 
 
 1 Letter to me, signed ' Eliza Snowden ' ; Miles was her 
 maiden name. ' Snowden,' once a clerk with her uncle, is now 
 himself, for long years back, a prosperous upholsterer ; and the 
 sylph-like Eliza, grown fat enough of shape, is the mother of six 
 or seven prosperous children to him.
 
 Edward Irving. 317 
 
 was, and for aught I know still is, the mocking 
 Hayward !) ; Jeffrey almost daily, as an admirer of 
 hers ; not to mention Mrs. Montague and Co., certain 
 Holcrofts (Badams married to one of them, a certain 
 Captain Kenny married to the mother of them, at 
 whose house I once saw Godwin, if that was any- 
 thing), Allan Cunningham from time to time, and 
 fluctuating foreigners, etc., etc. We had company 
 rather in superabundance than otherwise, and a 
 pair of the clearest eyes in the whole world were 
 there to take note of them all, a judgment to 
 compare and contrast them (as I afterwards found 
 she had been doing, the dear soul !) with what was 
 already all her own. Ah me ! Ah me ! 
 
 Soon after New Year's Day a great sorrow came, 
 unexpected news of my father's death. He had been 
 in bed, as ill, only a few hours, when the last hour 
 proved to be there, unexpectedly to all, except per- 
 haps to himself; for ever since my sister Margaret's 
 death he had been fast failing, though none of us 
 took notice enough, such had been his perfection of 
 health almost all through the seventy-three years he 
 lived. I sat plunged in the depths of natural grief, 
 the pale kingdoms of eternity laid bare to me, and all 
 that was sad and grand and dark as death filling my 
 thoughts exclusively day after day. How beautiful
 
 3 1 8 Edward Irving. 
 
 She was to me, how kind and tender ! Till after the 
 funeral my father's noble old face one of the finest 
 and strongest I have ever seen was continually 
 before my eyes. In these and the following days 
 and nights I hastily wrote down some memorials of 
 him, 1 which I have never since seen, but which still 
 exist somewhere ; though, indeed, they were not 
 worth preserving, still less are after I have done 
 with them. ' Posterity ! ' that is what I never 
 thought of appealing to. What possible use can 
 there be in appealing there, or in appealing any- 
 where, except by absolute silence to the High 
 Court of Eternity, which can do no error, poor 
 sickly transiencies that we are, coveting we know 
 not what! In the February ensuing I wrote 
 * Johnson ' (the * Bozzy ' part was published in 
 'Fraser' for March). A week or two before, we 
 had made acquaintance, by Hunt's own goodness, 
 with Leigh Hunt, and were much struck with 
 him. Early in April we got back to Annandale 
 and Craigenputtoch. Sadly present to my soul, 
 most sadly, yet most beautifully, all that, even 
 now! 
 
 In the course of the winter sad things had oc- 
 curred in Irving's history. His enthusiastic studies 
 1 The first ' Eeminiscence ' in this volume.
 
 Edward Irving. 319 
 
 and preachings were passing into the practically 
 
 * miraculous,' and to me the most doleful of all phe- 
 nomena. The ' Gift of Tongues ' had fairly broken 
 out among the crazed and weakliest of his wholly 
 rather dim and weakly flock. I was never at all in 
 his church during this visit, being grieved at once 
 and angered at. the course he had got into; but 
 once or twice poor Eliza Miles came running home 
 from some evening sermon there was, all in a 
 tremor of tears over these same ' Tongues,' and a 
 riot from the dissenting majority opposing them. 
 ' All a tumult yonder, oh me ! ' This did not hap- 
 pen above twice or so; Irving (never himself a 
 
 * Tongue ' performer) having taken some order with 
 the thing, and I think discouraged and nearly sup- 
 pressed it as unfit during church service. It was 
 greatly talked of by some persons, with an enquiry, 
 
 * Do you believe in it ? ' * Believe it ? As much as 
 I do in the high priest of Otaheite ! ' answered 
 Lockhart once to Fraser, the enquiring bookseller, 
 in my hearing. Sorrow and disgust were naturally 
 my own feeling. * How are the mighty fallen ! my 
 own high Irving come to this, by paltry popularities 
 and Cockney admirations puddling such a head!' 
 We ourselves saw less and less of Irving, but one 
 night in one of our walks we did make a call, and
 
 3 2O Edward Irving. 
 
 actually heard what they called the Tongues. It 
 was in a neighbouring room, larger part of the draw- 
 ing room belike. Mrs. Irving had retired thither 
 with the devotees. Irving for our sake had stayed, 
 and was pacing about the floor, dandling his young- 
 est child, and talking to us of this and that, prob- 
 ably about the Tongues withal, when there burst 
 forth a shrieky hysterical ' Lah lall lall ! ' (little 
 or nothing else but Z's and a's continued for several 
 minutes), to which Irving, with singular calmness, 
 said only, ' There, hear you, there are the Tongues ! ' 
 And we two, except by our looks, which probably 
 were eloquent, answered him nothing, but soon 
 came away, full of distress, provocation, and a kind 
 of shame. ' Why was there not a bucket of cold 
 water to fling on that lahlalling hysterical mad- 
 woman ? ' thought we, or said to one another. ' Oh, 
 heaven, that it should come to this ! ' I do not re- 
 member any call that we made there afterwards. Of 
 course there was a farewell call; but that too I 
 recollect only obliquely by my Jeannie's distress 
 and disgust at Mrs. living's hypocritical final kiss ; 
 a ' kiss ' of the untruest, which really ought to have 
 been spared. Seldom was seen a more tragical 
 scene to us than this of Irving's London life was 
 now becoming !
 
 Edward Irving. 32 1 
 
 One other time we did see Irving, at our lodg- 
 ing, where he had called to take leave of us a day 
 or two before our quitting London. I know not 
 whether the interview had been preconcerted be- 
 tween my darling and me for the sake of our com- 
 mon friend, but it was abundantly serious and 
 affecting to us all, and none of the three, I believe, 
 ever forgot it again. Preconcerting or not, I had 
 privately determined that I must tell Irving plainly 
 what I thought of his present course and posture. 
 And I now did so, breaking in by the first opportu- 
 nity, and leading the dialogue wholly into that 
 channel, till with all the delicacy, but also with all 
 the fidelity possible to me, I put him fully in pos- 
 session of what my real opinion was. She, my 
 noble Jeannie, said hardly anything, but her looks, 
 and here and there a word, testified how deep her 
 interest was, how complete her assent. I stated 
 plainly to him that he must permit me a few words 
 for relief of my conscience before leaving him for 
 we knew not what length of time, on a course which 
 I could not but regard as full of danger to him 
 That the 13th of the Corinthians to which he always 
 appealed, was surely too narrow a basis for so high 
 a tower as he was building upon it, a high lean 
 tower, or quasi-mosf, piece added to piece, till it 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 Edward Irvine/. 
 
 soared far above all human science and experience, 
 and flatly contradicted all that, founded solely on a 
 little text of writing in an ancient book ! No sound 
 judgment on such warranty could venture on such 
 an enterprise. Authentic 'writings' of the Most 
 High, were they found in old books only ? They 
 were in the stars and on the rocks, and in the brain 
 and heart of every mortal ; not dubious these to 
 any person, as this 13th of Corinthians very greatly 
 was. That it did not beseem him, Edward Irving, 
 to be hanging on the rearward of mankind, strug- 
 gling still to chain them to old notions not now well 
 tenable, but to be foremost in the van, leading on 
 by the light of the eternal stars across this hideous 
 delirious wilderness where we all were, towards 
 promised lands that lay ahead. Bethink you, my 
 friend, I said, is not that your plainly commanded 
 duty, more plain than any 13th of Corinthians can 
 be. I bid you pause and consider ; that verily is 
 my solemn advice to you ! I added that, as he 
 knew well, it was in the name of old friendship I 
 was saying all this. That I did not expect he would 
 at once.,- or soon, renounce his fixed views, connec- 
 tions, and methods for any words of mine ; but 
 perhaps at some future time of crisis and question- 
 ing dubiety in his own mind he might remember
 
 Edward Ir ling. 323 
 
 the words of a well-affected soul, and they might 
 then be a help to him. 
 
 During all this, which perhaps lasted about 
 twenty minutes, Irving sat opposite to me, within a 
 few feet ; my wife to his right hand and to my left, 
 silent and sad-looking, in the middle of the floor, 
 Irving, with head downcast, face indicating great 
 pain, but without the slightest word or sound from 
 him till I had altogether ended. He then began 
 with the mildest low tone, and face full of kindness 
 and composed distress 'dear friend,' and endea- 
 voured to make his apology and defence, which did 
 not last long or do anything to convince me, but 
 was in a style of modesty and friendly magnanimity 
 which no mortal could surpass, and which remains 
 to me at this moment dear and memorable and 
 worthy of all honour. Which done, he went silently 
 his way, no doubt with kindest farewell to us, and I 
 remember nothing more. Possibly we had already 
 made farewell call in Judd Street the day before, 
 and found him not there. 
 
 This was, in a manner, the last visit I ever 
 made to Irving, the last time either of us ever 
 freely saw him, or spoke with him at any length. 
 We had to go our way, he his ; and his soon proved 
 to be precipitous, full of chasms and plunges, which 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 Edward Irving. 
 
 rapidly led him to the close. Our journey home- 
 wards I have spoken of it elsewhere, and of the 
 dear reminiscences it leaves, ever sad, but also ever 
 blessed to me now. We were far away from Irving 
 in our solitary moors, stayed there still above two 
 years (one of our winters in Edinburgh), and heard 
 of Irving and his catastrophes only from a distance. 
 He had come to Annan and been expelled from the 
 Scottish Kirk. That scene I remember reading in 
 some newspaper with lively conception and emotion. 
 A poor aggregate of Eeverend Sticks in black gown, 
 sitting in Presbytery, to pass formal condemnation 
 on a man and a cause which might have been tried 
 in Patmos under presidency of St. John without 
 the right truth of it being got at! I knew the 
 ' Moderator ' (one Eoddick, since gone mad), for one 
 of the stupidest and barrenest of living mortals; 
 also the little phantasm of a creature Sloane his 
 'name who went niddy-noddying with his head, 
 and was infinitely conceited and phantasmal, by 
 whom Irving was rebuked with the * Kemember 
 where you are, sir ! ' and got answer, * I have not 
 forgotten where I am ; it is the church where I was 
 baptised, where I was consecrated to preach Christ, 
 where the bones of my dear ones lie buried.' Con- 
 demnation under any circumstances had to follow ;
 
 Edward Ir ving. 325 
 
 * le droit de me damner te reste toujours ! ' as poor 
 Danton said in a far other case. 
 
 The feeling of the population was, too, strong and 
 general for Irving. Keverends Sloane and Kocldick 
 were not without their apprehensions of some 
 tumult perhaps, had not the people been so reverent 
 of the place they were in. Irving sent us no word 
 of himself, made no appeal to any, friend or foe, 
 
 unless his preaching to the people up and down for 
 some days, partly perhaps in the way of defence, 
 though mostly on general Gospel subjects, could be 
 taken as such. He was followed by great crowds 
 who eagerly heard him. My brother Jamie, who 
 had been at several of those open-air preachings in 
 different parts of the Annan neighbourhood, and 
 who much admired and pitied the great Irving, gave 
 me the last notice I ever had of that tragic matter, 
 
 * Irving's vocal appelldtio ad populumj when Pres- 
 bytery had condemned him. This time the gather- 
 ing was at Ecclefechan, probably the final one of 
 all, and the last time he ever preached to Annandale 
 men. The assemblage was large and earnest, 
 gathered in the Middlebie road, a little way off the 
 main street and highway. The preacher stood on 
 some table or chair, which was fixed against the 
 trunk of a huge, high, strong and many-branched
 
 326 Edward Irving. 
 
 elm tree, well known to me and to everyone that 
 passes that way. The weather was of proper Febru- 
 ary quality, grimly fierce, with windy snow showers 
 flying. Irving had a woollen comforter about his 
 neck, skirts of comforter, hair, and cloak tossing 
 in the storms; eloquent voice well audible under 
 the groaning of the boughs and piping of the wind. 
 Jamie was on business in the village and had paused 
 awhile, much moved by what he saw and heard. It 
 was our last of Irving in his native Annandale. Mrs. 
 Oliphant, I think, relates that on getting back to 
 London he was put under a kind of arrest by certain 
 Angels or authorities of his New * Irvingite ' Church 
 (just established in Newman Street, Oxford Street), 
 for disobeying regulations perhaps in regard to 
 those volunteer preachings in Annandale and sat 
 with great patience in some penitential place among 
 them, dumb for about a week, till he had expiated 
 that sin. Irving was now become wholly tragical to 
 us, and the least painful we could expect in regard 
 to him was what mainly happened, that we heard no 
 news from that side at all. His health we vaguely 
 understood was becoming uncertain, news naturally 
 worse than none, had we much believed it ; which, 
 knowing his old herculean strength, I suppose we 
 did not.
 
 Edward Irving. 327 
 
 In 1834 came our own removal to London, con- 
 cerning which are heavy fields of memory, laborious, 
 beautiful, sad and sacred (oh, my darling lost one !) 
 were this the place for them, which it is not. Our 
 winter in Edinburgh, our haggles and distresses 
 (badness of servants mainly), our bits of diligences, 
 strenuous and sometimes happy, brought in fine the 
 clear resolution that we ought to go. I had been 
 in correspondence with London with John Mill, 
 Leigh Hunt, Mrs. Austin, etc. ever since our 
 presence there. ' Let us burn our ships,' said my 
 noble one, * and get on march ! ' I went as precur- 
 sor early in May, ignorantly thinking this was, as in 
 Scotland, the general and sole term for getting 
 houses in London, and that after May 26 there 
 would be none but leavings ! We were not very 
 practically advised, I should think, though there 
 were counsellors many. However, I roved hastily 
 about seeking houses for the next three weeks, 
 while my darling was still busier at home, getting 
 all things packed and put under way. 
 
 What endless toils for her, undertaken with 
 what courage, skill, and cheery heroism ! By the 
 time of her arrival I had been far and wide round 
 London, seeking houses. Had found out that the 
 western suburb was in important respects the fittest,
 
 328 Edward Irving. 
 
 and had seen nothing I thought so eligible there as 
 a certain one of three cheap houses ; which one she 
 on survey agreed to be the best, and which is in 
 fact No. 5 Great Cheyne Row, where the rest of our 
 life was to be passed together. Why do I write all 
 this ! It is too sad to me to think of it, broken 
 down and solitary as I am, and the lamp of my life, 
 which ' covered everything with gold ' as it were, 
 gone out, gone out ! 
 
 It was on one of those expeditions, a week or 
 more after my arrival, expedition to take survey of 
 the proposed No. 5, in company with Mrs. Austin, 
 whom I had taken up in Bayswater where she lived, 
 and with whom, attended also by Mrs. Jamieson, 
 not known to me before, but found by accident on a 
 call there, we were proceeding towards Chelsea in 
 the middle of a bright May day, when I noticed 
 well down in Kensington Gardens a dark male 
 figure sitting between two white female ones under 
 a tree ; male figure, which abruptly rose and stalked 
 towards me, whom, seeing it was Irving, I dis- 
 engaged myself and stept out to meet. It was 
 indeed Irving, but how changed in the two years 
 and two months since I had last seen him ! In look 
 he was almost friendlier than ever ; but he had sud- 
 denly become an old man. His head, which I had
 
 Edward Irving. 329 
 
 left raven-black, was grown grey, on the temples 
 almost snow-white. The face was hollow, wrinkly, 
 collapsed; the figure, still perfectly erect, seemed 
 to have lost all its elasticity and strength. We 
 walked some space slowly together, my heart 
 smitten with various emotions ; my speech, how- 
 ever, striving to be cheery and hopeful. He was 
 very kind and loving. It seemed to be a kind of 
 tender grief and regret that my Jeannie and I were 
 taking so important a step, and he not called at 
 all to assist, rendered unable to assist. Certainly in 
 all England there was no heart, and in all Scotland 
 only two or three, that wished us half as well. He 
 admitted his weak health, but treated it as tempo- 
 rary-; it seemed of small account to him. Friends 
 and doctors had advised him to shift to Bayswater 
 for better air, had got him a lodging there, a stout 
 horse to ride. Summer they expected would soon 
 set him up again. His tone was not despondent, 
 but it was low, pensive, full of silent sorrow. Once, 
 perhaps twice, I got a small bit of Annandale 
 laughter from him, strangely genuine, though so 
 lamed and overclouded. This was to me the most 
 affecting thing of all, and still is when I recall it. 
 He gave me his address in Bayswater, his house as 
 near as might be, and I engaged to try and find him
 
 330 Edward Irving. 
 
 there ; I, him, which seemed the likelier method in 
 our widely diverse elements, both of them so full of 
 bustle, interruption, and uncertainty. And so adieu, 
 my friend, adieu ! Neither of us had spoken with 
 the women of the other, and each of us was gone 
 his several road again, mine not specially remem- 
 bered farther. 
 
 It seems to me I never found Irving in his Bays- 
 water lodging. I distinctly recollect seeing him 
 one dusty evening about eight at the door there, 
 mount his horse, a stout fine bay animal, of the 
 kind called cob, and set out towards Newman Street, 
 whither he rode perhaps twice or thrice a day for 
 church services there were ; but this and his friendly 
 regret at being obliged to go is all I can recall of 
 interview farther. Neither at the Bayswater lodg- 
 ing nor at his own house in Newman Street when 
 he returned thither, could I for many weeks to 
 come ever find him * at home.' In Chelsea, we poor 
 pair of immigrants had, of course, much of our own 
 to do, and right courageously we marched together, 
 my own brave darling (what a store of humble, but 
 high and sacred memories to me !) victoriously 
 carrying the flag. But at length it struck me there 
 was something questionable in these perpetual * not- 
 at-home's' of Irving, and that perhaps his poor,
 
 Edward Irmng. 331 
 
 jealous, anxious, and much-bewildered wife had her 
 hand in the phenomenon. As proved to be the fact 
 accordingly. I applied to William Hamilton (excel- 
 lent City Scotsman, married, not over well I doubt, 
 to a sister of Mrs. Irving), with a brief statement of 
 the case, and had immediate remedy ; an appoint- 
 ment to dinner at Newman Street on a given day, 
 which I failed not to observe. None but Irving and 
 his wife, besides myself, were there. The dinner 
 (from a good joint of roast beef, in a dim but quite 
 comfortable kind of room), was among the pleasant- 
 est of dinners to me, Madam herself wearing no- 
 thing but smiles, and soon leaving us together to a 
 fair hour or two of free talk. I think the main 
 topic must have been my own outlooks and affairs, 
 my project of writing on the French Revolution, 
 which Irving warmly approved of (either then or 
 some other time). Of his church matters we never 
 spoke. I went away gratified, and for my own share 
 glad, had not the outlooks on his side been so 
 dubious and ominous. He was evidently growing 
 weaker, not stronger, wearing himself down, as to 
 me seemed too clear, by spiritual agitations, which 
 would kill him unless checked and ended. Could 
 he but be got to Switzerland, to Italy, I thought, 
 to some pleasant country of which the language was
 
 332 Edward Irving. 
 
 unknown to him, where he would be forced to 
 silence, the one salutary medicine for him in body 
 and in soul ! I often thought of this, but he had 
 now no brother, no father, on whom I could practi- 
 cally urge it, as I would with my whole strength 
 have done, feeling that his life now lay on it. I 
 had to hear of his growing weaker and weaker, 
 while there was nothing whatever that I could do. 
 
 With himself I do not recollect that there was 
 anything more of interview since that dinner in 
 Newman Street, or that I saw him again in the 
 world, except once only, to be soon noticed. Latish 
 in the autumn some of the Kirkcaldy Martins had 
 come. I remember speaking to his father-in-law 
 at Hamilton's in Cheapside one evening, and very 
 earnestly on the topic that interested us both. But 
 in Martin, too, there was nothing of help. ' Grows 
 weaker and weaker,' said he, ' and no doctor can find 
 the least disease in him ; so weak now he cannot lift 
 his little baby to his neck!' In my desperate 
 anxiety at this time I remember writing a letter on 
 my Switzerland or Italy scheme to Henry Drum- 
 mond, whom I yet knew nothing more of, but con- 
 sidered to be probably a man of sense and practical 
 insight; letter stating briefly my sad and clear 
 belief, that unless carried into some element of
 
 Edward Irving. 333 
 
 perfect silence, poor Irving would soon die ; letter 
 which lay some days on the mantelpiece at Chelsea, 
 under some misgivings about sending it, and was then 
 thrown into the fire. We heard before long that 
 it was decided he should journey slowly into Wales, 
 paying visits perhaps into Scotland, which seemed 
 the next best to what I would have proposed, and 
 was of some hope to us. And late one afternoon, 
 soon after, we had a short farewell visit from him ; 
 his first visit to Cheyne Kow and his last ; the last 
 we two ever saw of him in this world. It was to- 
 wards sunset, had there been any sun, that damp 
 dim October day. He came ambling gently on 
 his bay horse, sate some fifteen or twenty minutes, 
 and went away while it was still daylight. It was 
 in the ground-floor room, where I still write (thanks 
 to her last service to me, shifting me thither again, 
 the darling ever-helpful one !) Whether she was 
 sitting with me on his entrance I don't recollect, 
 but I well do his fine chivalrous demeanour to her, 
 and how he complimented her, as he well might, 
 on the pretty little room she had made for her hus- 
 band and self, and running his eye over her dainty 
 bits of arrangements, ornamentations, all so frugal, 
 simple, full of grace, propriety, and ingenuity as 
 they ever were, said, smiling, * You are like an Eve,
 
 334 Edward Irving. 
 
 and make a little Paradise -wherever you are ! ' His 
 manner was sincere, affectionate, yet with a great 
 suppressed sadness in it, and as if with a feeling 
 that he must not linger. It was perhaps on this 
 occasion that he expressed to me his satisfaction at 
 my having taken to ' writing history ' ( l French Ke- 
 volution ' now begun, I suppose) ; study of history, 
 he seemed to intimate, was the study of things real 
 practical and actual, and would bring me closer 
 upon all reality whatever. With a fine simplicity of 
 lovingness he bade us farewell. I followed him to 
 the door, held his bridle (doubtless) while he 
 mounted, no groom being ever with him on such 
 occasions, stood on the steps as he quietly walked or 
 ambled up Cheyne Kow, quietly turned the corner 
 (at Wright's door, or the Hector's back garden door), 
 into Cook's grounds, and had vanished from my eyes 
 for evermore. In this world neither of us ever 
 saw him again. He was off northward in a day or 
 two, died at Glasgow in December following, age 
 only forty-three, and except weakness no disease 
 traceable. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant's narrative is nowhere so true and 
 touching to me as in that last portion, where it is 
 drawn almost wholly from his own letters to his 
 wife. All there is true to the life, and recognisable
 
 Edward Irving. 335 
 
 to me as perfect portraiture ; what I cannot quite 
 say of any other portion of the book. All Mrs. 
 Oliphant's delineation shows excellent diligence, 
 loyalty, desire to be faithful, and indeed is full of 
 beautiful sympathy and ingenuity ; but nowhere 
 else are the features of Irving or of his environment 
 and life recognisably hit, and the pretty picture, to 
 one who knew his looks throughout, is more or less 
 romantic pictorial, and 'not like' till we arrive here, 
 at the grand close of all, which to me was of almost 
 Apocalyptic impressiveness when I first read it some 
 years ago. What a falling of the curtain ! upon 
 what a drama ! Kustic Annandale begins it, with 
 its homely honesties, rough vernacularities., safe, 
 innocently kind, ruggedly mother-like, cheery, 
 wholesome, like its airy hills and clear-rushing 
 streams ; prurient corrupted London is the middle 
 part, with its volcanic stupidities and bottomless 
 confusions ; and in the end is terrible, mysterious, 
 godlike and awful ; what Patmos could be more 
 so? It is as if the vials, of Heaven's wrath were 
 pouring down upon a man, yet not wrath alone, for 
 his heart was filled with trust in Heaven's goodness 
 withal. It must be said Irving nobly expiates 
 whatever errors he has fallen into. Like an antique 
 evangelist he walks his stony course, the fixed
 
 336 Edward Irving. 
 
 thought of his heart at all times, ' Though he slay me, 
 yet will I trust in Him ; ' and these final deluges of 
 sorrow are but washing the faithful soul of him clear. 
 
 He sent from Glasgow a curious letter to his 
 * Grift of Tongues ' congregation ; full of question- 
 ings, dubieties upon the Tongues, and such points, 
 full of wanderings in deep waters, with one light 
 fixed on high : f Humble ourselves before God, and 
 he will shpw us ; ' letter indicating a sincerity as 
 of very death, which these New Church people 
 (Henry Drummond and Co.) first printed for useful 
 private circulation, and then afterwards zealously 
 suppressed and destroyed, till almost everybody but 
 myself had forgotten the existence of it. Luckily, 
 about two years ago I still raked out a copy of it 
 from * Eev. Gavin Carlile,' l by whom I am glad to 
 know it has been printed and made prominent, as a 
 document honourable and due to such a memory. 
 Less mendacious soul of a man than my noble 
 Irving's there could not well be. 
 
 It was but a little while before this that he 
 had said to Drummond, what was mentioned above, 
 ' I ought to have seen more of T. Carlyle, and 
 heard him more clearly than I have done.' And 
 
 1 Nephew of Irving. Now editing Irving's Select Works, or 
 some such title.
 
 Edward L-ring. 337 
 
 there is one other thing which dates several years 
 before, which I always esteem highly honourable 
 to Irving's memory, and which I will note here 
 as my last item, since it was forgotten at its right- 
 date. Eight date is that of ' German Romance,' 
 early 1826. The report is from my brother John, 
 to whom Irving spoke on the subject, which with 
 me he had always rather avoided. Irving did 
 not much know Goethe ; had generally a dislike 
 to him as to a kind of heathen ungodly person 
 and idle singer, who had considerably seduced me 
 from the right path, as one sin. He read * Wil- 
 helm Meister's Travels ' nevertheless, and he said to 
 John one day, * Very curious ! in this German poet 
 there are some pages about Christ and the Christian 
 religion, which as I study and re-study them have 
 more sense about that matter than I have found 
 in all the theologians I have ever read ! ' Was not 
 this a noble thing for such a man to feel and say ? 
 I have a hundred times recommended that passage 
 in ' Wilhelm Meister ' to enquiring and devout souls, 
 but I think never elsewhere met with one who so 
 thoroughly recognised it. One of my last letters, 
 flung into the fire just before leaving London, was from 
 an Oxford self-styled ' religious enquirer,' who asks me 
 if in those pages of ' Meister ' there is not a wonder- 
 VOL. i. z 
 
 *
 
 338 Edward Irving. 
 
 fully distinct foreshadow of Cornte and Positivism ! 
 Phcebus Apollo, god of the sun, foreshadowing the 
 miserablest phantasmal algebraic ghost I have yet 
 met with among the ranks of the living ! 
 
 I have now ended, and am sorry to end, what I 
 had to say of Irving. It is like bidding him fare- 
 well for a second and the last time. He waits in 
 the eternities. Another, his brightest scholar, has 
 left me and gone thither. Grod be about us all. 
 Amen. Amen. 
 
 P'inished at Mentone, January 2, 1867, looking 
 towards the eastward hills, bathed in sunshine, 
 tinder a brisk west wind ; two P.M. 
 
 T. C. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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