More personal were the connections with Edinburgh which Carlyle still kept up by visits from Kirkcaldy, either by himself or with Irving. As it was not much to cross the Firth on a Saturday or occasional holiday, such visits were pretty frequent. Carlyle notes them, and the meetings and little convivialities which he and Irving had in the course of them with nondescript and clerical Edinburgh acquaintances, chiefly Irving’s, here and there in Edinburgh houses and lodgings. Nothing of consequence came of these convivialities, passed mostly, he says, in “gossip and more or less ingenious giggle,” and serving only to make Irving and him feel that, though living in Kirkcaldy, they had the brighter Edinburgh element close at hand. One Edinburgh visit of Carlyle’s from Kirkcaldy deserves particular record:—“On one of these visits,” he says, “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. Ritchie ‘not at home’ when I called to enter myself. ‘Good!’ answered I; ‘_let the omen be fulfilled_.’” In other words, he never went back to Dr. Ritchie, and ceased to be a Divinity student. Such is the account in the _Reminiscences_, confirmed by a private note in Carlyle’s hand, published in Mr. Froude’s article:—“The theological course, which could be prosecuted or kept open by appearing annually, putting down your name, but with some trifling fee, in the register, and then going your way, was,” he says, “after perhaps two years of this languid form, allowed to close itself for good. I remember yet being on the street in Argyll Square, Edinburgh, probably in 1817, and come over from Kirkcaldy with some intent, the languidest possible, still to put down my name and fee. The official person, when I rang, was not at home, and my instant feeling was, ‘_Very good, then, very good; let this be finis in the matter._’ And it really was.” This is precise enough, but perhaps with a slight mistake in the dating. The name, “Thomas Carlyle, Hoddam,” as we have seen, does stand in the register of the Edinburgh Divinity Hall students for the session 1817–18, its only previous appearance in the preserved lists being in 1814–15, though it is likely he had begun his Divinity course in 1813–14. It must, therefore, have been after 1817 that he made the above-mentioned call on Dr. Ritchie in Argyll Square. The probability is that it was late in 1818, in anticipation of the coming session of 1818–19. PART II.—1818–1822