154 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS be as antiquated as Pope's, or Cowper's, or Chapman's. No English poet ever undertook and performed so great a task as this of Mr. Bryant's so late in life. It is like Homer himself singing in his old age. THOMAS CARLYLE By W. Wallace (1795-1881) Thomas Carlyle was born December 4, 1795, at Ecclesfechan, in the parish of Hoddam, Annan- dale, Dumfriesshire, a small Scottish market-town, the Entipfuhl of " Sartor Resartus," six miles inland from the Solway, and about sixteen by road from Carlisle. He was the second son of James Carlyle, stone-mason, but his first son by his second wife, Mar- garet Aitken. James Carlyle, who came of a family which, although in humble circumstances, was an off- shoot of a Border clan, was a man of great physical and moral strength, of fearless independence, and of, in his son's opinion, " a natural faculty " equal to that of Burns ; and Margaret Aitken was " a woman of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just, and the wise." Frugal, abstemious, prudent, though not niggardly, James Carlyle was prosperous according to the times, the conditions of his trade, and the standard of Ecclesfechan. He was able, therefore, to give such of his sons (he had a family of ten children in all, five sons and five daughters) as showed an aptitude for culture an excellent Scottish education. Thomas seems to have been taught his letters and elementary reading by his mother, and arithmetic by his father. His home-teaching was supplemented by attendance at the Ecclesfechan school, where he was " reported complete in English " at about seven, made satisfactory progress in arithmetic, and took to Latin with enthusiasm. Thence he pro- ceeded, in 1805, to Annan Academy, where he learned to read Latin and French fluently, ' some geometry, algebra, arithmetic thoroughly well, vague outlines of geography, Greek to the extent of the alphabet mainly." His first two years at Annan Academy were among the most miserable in his life, from his being bul- lied by some of his fellow-pupils, whom he describes as " coarse, unguided, tyr- annous cubs." But he " revolted against them, and gave them shake for shake." In his third year, Carlyle had his first glimpse of Edward Irving, who was five years his senior, and had been a pupil at Annan Academy, but was then attend- ing classes at Edinburgh University. In November, 1809, Carlyle himself en.
