VII.

Dr. John Carlyle told me, with reference to the quaint framework of his brother's unique book ("Sartor Resartus"), that he had no doubt it was suggested by the accounts he (Dr. C.) used to give him of his experiences in Germany while pursuing his medical studies there. There was a Schelling Club, which Schelling himself used to visit now and then, devoted to beer, smoke, and philosophy. The free, and often wild, speculative talks of these cloud-veiled (with tobacco-smoke) intelligences of the transcendental Olympus amused his brother Thomas much in the description and rehearsal, and the doctor said he recalled many of the comments and much of the laughter in "Sartor Resartus." Apart from this framework, there never was a book which came more directly from the heart and life of a man; and being for that very reason a chapter of the world's experience, it was a word which came to its own only to find a slow reception. It was a long time before it could find a publisher-this great book into which five years of labor had gone-but at last (1833) Mr. Fraser consented to publish it in his magazine, much to the consternation of his readers.

"When it began to appear," said Carlyle, "poor Fraser, who had courageously undertaken it, found himself in great trouble. The public had no liking

whatever for that kind of thing. Letters lay piled mountain high on his table, the burden of them being, 'Either stop sending your magazine to me, or stop printing that crazy stuff about clothes.' I advised him to hold on a little longer, and asked if there were no voices in a contrary sense. 'Just two

-a Mr. Emerson, of New England, and a Catholic priest at Cork.' These said, 'Send me Fraser so long as "Sartor" continues in it."" Some years afterwards Carlyle visited Cork, and found out his Roman Catholic reader, and he used to relate, with some drollery, how he was kept waiting for some time because the servant was unwilling to disturb him during some hours of penance and prayer with which he was engaged in the garden. "The interview did not amount to much."

"Sartor Resartus" first appeared in book form in New England (1835), edited by Emerson, to whom also is to be credited the collection of Carlyle's miscellaneous papers. Carlyle loved to dwell upon the recognition he had received from New England in the years when he was comparatively unknown in his own country. "There was really something maternal in the way America treated me. The first book I ever saw of mine, the first I could look upon as wholly my own, was sent me from that country, and I think it was the most pathetic event of my life when I saw it laid on my table. The 'French Rev

olution,' too, which had alarmed everybody here, and brought me no penny, was taken up in America with enthusiasm, and as much as one hundred and fifty pounds sent to me for it." "Sartor Resartus" and the "Miscellanies" were both published in England in book form in 1838, after their appearance in America.

Mr. Carlyle was much urged about that time to visit the United States, and had intended to do so; he was, I believe, only prevented from fulfilling his intention by the pressure of his labors on the "French Revolution"-more particularly by the necessity of reproducing the first volume of it, which had been burned by a servant-girl.

There is a letter of which my reader will be glad to read a portion in this memoir, and in connection with what has been said concerning the home and circumstances amid which "Sartor Resartus" was written. It is Carlyle's letter to Goethe, published in the latter's translation of the "Life of Schiller" (Frankfort, 1830):

"You inquire with such warm interest respecting our present abode and occupations, that I feel bound to say a few words about both, while there is still room left. Dumfries is a pleasant town, containing about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and may be considered the centre of the trade and judicial system of a district which possesses some importance in the sphere of Scottish industry. Our residence is not in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the northwest, among the granite hills and the black morasses which stretch westward through

Galloway almost to the Irish Sea. In this wilderness of heath and rock our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed and planted ground, where corn ripens, and trees afford a shade, although surrounded by sea-mews and rough- wooled sheep. Here, with no small effort, have we built and furnished a neat, substantial dwelling; here, in the absence of professorial or other office, we live to cultivate literature according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way. We wish a joyful growth to the rose and flowers of our garden; we hope for health and peaceful thoughts to further our aims. The roses, indeed, are still in part to be planted, but they blossom already in anticipation. Two ponies, which carry us everywhere, and the mountain air, are the best medicines for weak nerves. This daily exercise-to which I am much devoted-is my only recreation for this nook of ours is the loveliest in Britain-six miles removed from any one likely to visit me. Here Rousseau would have been as happy as on his island of St. Pierre. My town friends, indeed, ascribe, my sojourn here to a similar disposition, and forbode me no good result. But I came hither solely with the design to simplify my way of life, and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself. This bit of earth is our own; here we can live, write, and think as best pleases ourselves, even though Zoilus himself were to be crowned the monarch of literature. Nor is the solitude of such great importance; for a stage-coach takes us speedily to Edinburgh, which we look upon as our British Weimar. And have I not, too, at this moment piled up upon the table of my little library a whole cart-load of French, German, American, and English journals and periodicals-whatever may be their worth? Of antiquarian studies, too, there is no lack. From some of our heights I can descry, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where Agricola and his Romans left a camp behind them. At the foot of it I was born, and there both father and mother still live to love me. And so one must let Time work.

"But whither am I wandering? Let me confess to you I am uncertain about my future literary activity, and would gladly learn your

opinion concerning it; at least pray write to me again, and speedily, that I may feel myself united to you. The only piece of any importance that I have written since I came here is an 'Essay on Burns.' Perhaps you never heard of him, and yet he is a man of the most decided genius; but born in the lowest rank of peasant life, and through the entanglements of his peculiar position was at length mournfully wrecked, so that what he effected was comparatively unimportant. He died, in the middle of his career, in the year 1796. We English, especially the Scotch, loved Burns more than any poet that had lived for centuries. I have often been struck by the fact that he was born a few months before Schiller, in the year 1759, and that neither of them ever heard the other's name. They shone like stars in opposite hemispheres, or, if you will, the thick mist of earth intercepted their reciprocal light."

Goethe, commenting upon this letter, says that Burns was not unknown to him. He speaks in the highest terms of the exactness with which Carlyle had entered into the life and individuality of Schiller, and of all the German authors whom he had introduced to his countrymen. He prefaces his translation of the "Life of Schiller" with two pictures of the residence of Carlyle. In the year after the above letter was written, Mr. Carlyle wrote another letter to Goethe in reply to one from the latter, which I have not seen published in England, but is interesting as indicating the feeling in that country towards German literature up to the time at which he began his work. This letter was written on December 22, 1829, and in it Carlyle says, "You will be pleased to hear that the knowledge and appreciation of foreign, and especially of German, literature spreads