similar academy at Kirkcaldy; but this was their first real meeting. It was, as Carlyle tells us, by no means promising. Irving, in a somewhat grandiose way, asked Carlyle this and that about what was going on in Annan. Carlyle, irritated a little by his air of superiority, answered more and more succinctly, till at last to such questions as “Has Mrs. —— got a baby? Is it a son or daughter?” his answers were merely that he did not know. “You seem to know nothing,” said Irving, after one or two rebuffs of the kind. “To which,” says Carlyle, “I, with prompt emphasis, somewhat provoked, replied, ‘Sir, by what right do you try my knowledge in this way? Are you the 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.’” There might be worse subjects for a painter than this first meeting between Irving and Carlyle. The very room in Rose Street, I suppose, still exists, and there would be little difficulty in imagining the group. On one side, staggering from the blow he has just received, we see the Herculean Irving, three-and-twenty years of age, with coal-black hair, and handsome and jovial visage, despite his glaring squint; seated on the other side we see the thinner and more bilious figure of the stripling Carlyle, just after he has delivered the blow; and Waugh and Nichol stand between, looking on and laughing.[15]