My acknowledgments are due to several of the Press comments which appeared shortly after Carlyle's death, more especially that of the _St. James's Gazette_, giving the most philosophical brief summary of his religious views which I have seen; and to the kindness of Dr. Eugene Oswald, President of the Carlyle Society, in supplying me with valuable hints on matters relating to German History and Literature. I have also to thank the Editor of the _Manchester Guardian_ for permitting me to reproduce the substance of my article in its columns of February 1881. That article was largely based on a contribution on the same subject, in 1859, to Mackenzie's _Imperial Dictionary of Biography_. I may add that in the distribution of material over the comparatively short space at my command, I have endeavoured to give prominence to facts less generally known, and passed over slightly the details of events previously enlarged on, as the terrible accident to Mrs. Carlyle and the incidents of her death. To her inner history I have only referred in so far as it had a direct bearing on her husband's life. As regards the itinerary of Carlyle's foreign journeys, it has seemed to me that it might be of interest to those travelling in Germany to have a short record of the places where the author sought his "studies" for his greatest work. CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY CHAPTER II 1795-1826 ECCLEFECHAN AND EDINBURGH CHAPTER III 1826-1834 CRAIGENPUTTOCK (from Marriage to London) CHAPTER IV 1834-1842 CHEYNE ROW--(To death of Mrs. Welsh) CHAPTER V 1842-1853 CHEYNE ROW--(To death of Carlyle's Mother) CHAPTER VI 1853-1866 THE MINOTAUR--(To death of Mrs. Carlyle) CHAPTER VII 1866-1881 DECADENCE CHAPTER VIII CARLYLE AS MAN OF LETTERS, CRITIC, AND HISTORIAN CHAPTER IX CARLYLE'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY CHAPTER X ETHICS--PREDECESSORS--INFLUENCE APPENDIX ON CARLYLE'S RELIGION INDEX THOMAS CARLYLE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY Four Scotchmen, born within the limits of the same hundred years, all in the first rank of writers, if not of thinkers, represent much of the spirit of four successive generations. They are leading links in an intellectual chain. DAVID HUME (1711-1776) remains the most salient type in our island of the scepticism, half conservative, half destructive, but never revolutionary, which marked the third quarter of the eighteenth century. He had some points of intellectual contact with Voltaire, though substituting a staid temper and passionless logic for the incisive brilliancy of a mocking Mercury; he had no relation, save an unhappy personal one, to Rousseau.