CARLYLE, THOMAS (1795-1881).--Historian and essayist, was _b._ at Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire. His _f._, James C., was a stonemason, a man of intellect and strong character, and his mother was, as he said, "of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just, and the wise." His earliest education was received at the parish school of Ecclefechan (the Entepfuhl of _Sartor Resartus_). Thence he went to the Grammar School of Annan, and in 1809 to the Univ. of Edin., the 90 miles to which he travelled on foot. There he read voraciously, his chief study being mathematics. After completing his "Arts" course, he went on to divinity with the view of entering the Church, but about the middle of his course found that he could not proceed. He became a schoolmaster first at Annan and then at Kirkcaldy, where he formed a profound friendship with Edward Irving (_q.v._), and met Margaret Gordon, afterwards Lady Bannerman, believed by some to be the prototype of _Blumine_ in _Sartor_. Returning in 1819 to Edin. he for a time studied law and took pupils; but his health was bad, he suffered from insomnia and dyspepsia, and he tired of law. He was also sorely bestead by mental and spiritual conflicts, which came to a crisis in Leith Walk in June 1821 in a sudden uprising of defiance to the devil and all his works, upon which the clouds lifted. For the next two years, 1822-24, he acted as tutor to Charles Buller (whose promising political career was cut short by his premature death) and his brother. On the termination of this engagement he decided upon a literary career, which he began by contributing articles to the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_. In 1824 he translated Legendre's _Geometry_ (to which he prefixed an essay on Proportion), and Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_; he also wrote for the _London Magazine_ a _Life of Schiller_. About this time he visited Paris and London, where he met Hazlitt, Campbell, Coleridge, and others. Thereafter he returned to Dumfriesshire. In the following year (1826) he _m._ Jane Baillie Welsh, and settled in Edin. Here his first work was _Specimens of German Romance_ (4 vols.) A much more important matter was his friendship with Jeffrey and his connection with the _Edinburgh Review_, in which appeared, among others, his essays on _Richter_, _Burns_, _Characteristics_, and _German Poetry_. In 1828 C. applied unsuccessfully for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, and the same year he went to Craigenputtock, a small property in Dumfriesshire belonging to Mrs. C., where they remained for several years, and where many of his best essays and _Sartor Resartus_ were written, and where his correspondence with Goethe began. In 1831 he went to London to find a publisher for _Sartor_, but was unsuccessful, and it did not appear in book form until 1838, after having come out in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1833-34. The year last mentioned found him finally in London, settled in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, his abode for the rest of his life.