Professor Masson, who in loving, painstaking style has ferreted all the facts about Carlyle's university life, sums up in these words: 'Without assuming that he meant the university described in _Sartor Resartus_ to stand literally for Edinburgh University, of his own experience, we have seen enough to show that any specific training of much value he considered himself to owe to his four years in the Arts classes in Edinburgh University, was the culture of his mathematical faculty under Leslie, and that for the rest he acknowledged merely a certain benefit from being in so many class-rooms where matters intellectual were professedly in the atmosphere, and where he learned to take advantage of books.' As Carlyle put it in his Rectorial Address of 1866, 'What I have found the university did for me is that it taught me to read in various languages, in various sciences, so that I go into the books which treated of these things, and gradually penetrate into any department I wanted to make myself master of, as I found it suit me.' In 1814, Carlyle obtained the mathematical tutorship at Annan. Out of his slender salary of £60 or £70 he was able to save something, so that he was practically independent. By and by James Carlyle gave up his trade, and settled on a small farm at Mainhill, about two miles from Ecclefechan. Thither Thomas hied with unfeigned delight at holiday time, for he led the life of a recluse at Annan, his books being his sole companions. Edward Irving, to whom Carlyle was introduced in college days, was now settled as a dominie in Kirkcaldy. His teaching was not favourably viewed by some of the parents, who started a rival school, and resolved to import a second master, with the result that Carlyle was selected. Irving, with great magnanimity, gave him a cordial welcome to the 'Lang Toon,' and the two Annandale natives became fast friends. The elder placed his well-selected library at the disposal of the younger, and together they explored the whole countryside. Short visits to Edinburgh had a special attraction for both, where they met with a few kindred spirits. On one of those visits, Carlyle, who had not cut off his connection with the university, called at the Divinity Hall to put down his name formally on the annual register. In his own words: 'Old Dr Ritchie "not at home" when I called to enter myself. "Good!" answered I; "_let the omen be fulfilled_."' Carlyle's studies in Kirkcaldy made him eager to contribute to the fulfilment of the omen. Among the authors which he read out of the Edinburgh University library was Gibbon, who pushed Carlyle's sceptical questionings to a definite point. In a conversation with Professor Masson, Carlyle stated that to his reading of Gibbon he dated the extirpation from his mind of the last remnant that had been left in it of the orthodox belief in miracles.