story he was ignorant, ‘something of real insanity I have understood,’ Reminiscences, ii. 166) had degenerated into a mere cockney idol, ruined by flattery. Southey and Wordsworth had ‘retired far from the din of this monstrous city,’ and Carlyle thought best to follow their example. If his judgment was harsh, it put new force into his resolution to deliver his own message to a backsliding generation, and to refuse at whatever cost to prostitute his talents for gain or flattery.
The most gratifying incident of this period was a letter from Goethe acknowledging the translation of ‘Meister,’ and introducing ‘the Lords Bentinck’ (one of them Lord George), whom Carlyle did not see. The translation had been successful. Carlyle had arranged to translate other selections from German writers, which ultimately appeared in 1827. He proceeded to carry out his scheme of retirement. His father took a farm called Hoddam Hill, about two miles from Mainhill, at a rent of 100l. a year. His brother Alexander managed the farm; and Carlyle settled down with his books, and after some idleness took up his translating. The quiet, the country air, and long rides on his ‘wild Irish horse “Larry,”’ improved his health and spirits, and justified his choice; but his life was now to be seriously changed.
Jane Baillie Welsh was descended from two unrelated families, both named Welsh. They had long been settled at the manor-house of Craigenputtock. Her father, John Welsh, descended through a long line of John Welshes from John Welsh, a famous minister of Ayr, whose wife was daughter of John Knox. The last John Welsh (b. 4 April 1776) was a pupil of one of the Bells, and afterwards became a country doctor at Haddington. His father, John Welsh of Penfillan (so called after his farm), survived him, dying in 1823. Dr. Welsh, in 1801, married Grace, or Grizzie, Welsh, daughter of Walter Welsh, a stock-farmer, who upon his daughter's marriage settled at Templand, near Penfillan. Walter's wife, a Miss Baillie, claimed descent from William Wallace. A John Welsh, often mentioned in the books upon Carlyle, was son of Walter, and therefore maternal uncle of Jane Baillie Welsh. He settled at Liverpool, became bankrupt through the dishonesty of a partner, and afterwards retrieved his fortune and paid his creditors in full. Jane Baillie Welsh (b. 14 July 1801) was the only child of her parents. From her infancy she was remarkably bright and self-willed. She insisted on learning Latin, and was sent to Haddington school. Irving came there as a master, lived in her father's house, and introduced her to Virgil. On her tenth birthday she burnt her doll on a funeral pyre, after the model of Dido; at fourteen she wrote a tragedy, and continued for many years to write poetry. Her father, the only person who had real influence with her, died of typhus fever caught from a patient in September 1819, and her health suffered from the blow for years. She continued to live with her mother, to whom her father had left a sufficient income, and became known from her wit and beauty as ‘the flower of Haddington.’ She was sought by many lovers, and encouraged more than one, but cherished a childish passion for her tutor Irving. He had removed to Kirkcaldy, and there, while Miss Welsh was still a child, became engaged to Miss Martin. He continued to visit Haddington, and came to a mutual understanding with Miss Welsh. They hoped, it seems, that the Martins would consent to release him; but when this hope was disappointed, both agreed that he must keep to his engagement. Irving married in the autumn of 1823. Meanwhile, in June 1821, Irving had brought Carlyle from Edinburgh to Haddington, and there introduced him to Miss Welsh. Carlyle obtained permission to send her books, opened a correspondence, and saw her on her occasional visits to Edinburgh. Irving wrote some final letters of farewell to Miss Welsh in the autumn of 1822.
Carlyle, who was quite ignorant of this affair, was meanwhile becoming more intimate with Miss Welsh, who was beginning to recognise his remarkable qualities, and to regard him with a much deeper feeling than that which she had formerly entertained for Irving. In the summer of 1823, while he was at Kinnaird, she had told him emphatically that he had misunderstood a previous letter, and that she would never be his wife. Soon afterwards she executed a deed transferring the whole of her father's property, some 200l. or 300l. a year (Froude, iii. 237), which had been left to her, to her mother, in order that her husband, if she ever married, might not be able to diminish her mother's income. She also left the whole to Carlyle in case of her own and her mother's death.
For the next two years the intimacy gradually increased, with various occasional difficulties. In the spring of 1824 she had promised, apparently in a fit of repentance for a quarrel, that she would become his wife if he could achieve independence. Some remarkable letters passed during his stay in England. Carlyle proposed his favourite scheme for settling with her as his wife upon a farm—her farm of Craigenputtock, for example, then about to become vacant—and devoting himself to his lofty aspirations. Miss Welsh
