It seems to have been about June 1819 that the migration from Edinburgh to Mainhill was carried into effect. It is thus mentioned in one of Irving’s letters from Bristo Street to the Martins of Kirkcaldy:—“Carlyle goes away to-morrow, and Brown the next day. So here I am once more on my own resources, except Dickson, who is better fitted to swell the enjoyment of a joyous than to cheer the solitude of a lonely hour. For this Carlyle is better fitted than any one I know. It is very odd indeed that he should be sent for want of employment to the country. Of course, like every man of talent, he has gathered around this Patmos many a splendid purpose to be fulfilled, and much improvement to be wrought out. ‘I have the ends of my thoughts to bring together, which no one can do in this thoughtless scene. I have my views of life to reform, and the whole plan of my conduct to new-model; and, into all, I have my health to recover. And then once more I shall venture my bark upon the waters of this wide realm; and, if she cannot weather it, I shall steer west, and try the waters of another world.’ So he reasons and resolves; but surely a worthier destiny awaits him than voluntary exile.”[19] Within a few weeks after the writing of this letter, viz. on a late Sunday in July 1819, there occurred the incident which was to lead to Irving’s own removal from Edinburgh, and affect the whole future course of his life. This was his appearance in the pulpit of St. George’s church, by the friendly arrangement of Dr. Andrew Thomson, the minister of that church, in order that Dr. Chalmers, then on a visit to Edinburgh, and looking out for an assistant to himself in his great Glasgow church and parish of St. John’s, might have a private opportunity of hearing Mr. Irving and judging of his fitness. Let the autumn of 1819 be supposed to have passed, with Carlyle’s studies and early risings in his father’s house at Mainhill in Dumfriesshire,[20] and those negotiations between Irving and Dr. Chalmers which issued in the definite appointment of Irving to the Glasgow assistantship. It was in October 1819 that this matter was settled; and then Irving, who had been on a visit to his relatives in Annan, and was on his way thence to Glasgow, to enter on his new duties, picked up Carlyle at Mainhill, for that walk of theirs up the valley of the Dryfe, and that beating-up of their common friend, Frank Dickson, in his clerical quarters, which are so charmingly described in the _Reminiscences_.