that we must be nearing the village where, five years before the dawn of the present century, there was born to a humble, but industrious, intelligent, and God-fearing couple-members of that peasant class which has furnished Scotland with a majority of her greatest names-a son who was destined to grow up into an illustrious guide and inspirer of men. From these hedges of thorn guarding our path, Thomas Carlyle, as a boy, had probably gathered the sprigs of "may" in the early summer, and the ripe, if not luscious, fruit in the late autumn. In this very fir wood, who knows, he may have played with his schoolmates, or rested, book in hand, on his lonely rambles. These very fields and lanes may have witnessed his eager converse with his student friend Edward Irving, when there was "nothing but joy, health, and hopefulness without end" in their young hearts. Such were the reflections suggested by the sight of that name on the old country cart. A new glory diffused itself over the landscape; for were not these the scenes in the midst of which had been nurtured the greatest of all the living sons of the Scottish soil?

How the charm would be lessened that we find in the scenery of our native land, how much less potent would be the influence of that scenery in the formation of character, were it not for such associations as these! Without the moral interest derived from humanity, the physical beauty and grandeur would count for comparatively little; even the most splendid prospects in nature assert but a limited power over the mind until they have been linked to the story of noble lives. What are the fields, however good for growing corn, that have been hallowed by no memories of martyr and hero? the rivers

Scenery and Noble Lives.

3

that are songless but for their own natural music? the mountains that are no more associated with human life than are the clouds which mantle round their summits? Even the sky-cleaving peaks that rise from the Yosemite Valley, and the groves of that marvellous region, must, after all, be comparatively tame, since, with all their material magnitude, they have no story to tell about man. The figure of Columba, emerging from the mists of a venerable antiquity, glides with us as we sail among the Hebridean isles, and the grey old evangelist and his school of the prophets rise upon our view as we cast anchor under the Cyclopean walls of Elachnave, or set foot on the sacred soil of Iona; the savage gloom of Glencoe is deepened by the song of Ossian, which comes moaning down every corrie, like the sighing of the nightwind among the hills; a whole west country, from Elderslie to Lochryan, is transfigured by the memories of Wallace, and Bruce, and Burns; and, go where you may in the land of Walter Scott, every hill, and valley, and stream has felt the touch of the magician's wand. Not merely for their natural loveliness do we visit those lakes on whose woody shores dwelt Southey and Coleridge, De Quincey and Arnold, Wilson and Wordsworth. Sheffield, with its clang of hammers, and thick smoke. curtain, looks less grim when we think of Ebenezer Elliott and James Montgomery. Byron and Kirke White deepen the romance of Sherwood Forest, and send a pathos through Wilford Grove; the whole of woody Warwickshire becomes like fairyland at thought of Shakespeare; even the dull banks of the sleepy Ouse are glorified by the Farmer of St Ives and the Bedford Tinker-the one the doer of the greatest deeds, the

other the dreamer of the grandest dream, that fill with so much meaning the name of England.

Although the man who was to add a fresh charm to the lovely shire in which the Bruce was born, and where Burns found his grave, did not appear in the world till the eighteenth century was nearly ended, the name he bore had long been one of the most illustrious in Annandale. The Carlyles, indeed, were among the very oldest families in that richly-storied province of Scotland; and before they came thither, they had been one of the most powerful houses in Cumberland, where, at the time of the Norman Conquest, they possessed large estates. The history of the Carlyle family is a subject in which its most distinguished member naturally felt a keen interest, and on which, as we have reason to know, he had bestowed considerable attention-so much, indeed, that a rumour was at one time current to the effect, that he was collecting materials for a history of the House.* The

* "That Mr Carlyle descended from this grand stock, there can be no sort of doubt, but his genealogical tree was too imperfect to establish the connection. In a letter to a kinsman some years ago, Mr Carlyle related how, when Nicholas Carlisle, the antiquarian, paid them a visit, while searching for materials for a family history, his father and uncle gave the distinguished visitor audience in a field where they were busily engaged in ploughing."-The Globe Newspaper, Feb. 5, 1881. The castle of Torthorwald, the chief seat of the Carlyles, is supposed to have been built in the thirteenth century. It has been placed in the second class of Border castles, not because of its size, but on account of its strength and accessory defences, in which respect it was not exceeded by some of the firstclass fortresses. It is supposed to have been last repaired about 1630. "An ancient man now (1789) living at Lochmaben," writes Capt. Grose, "remembers the roof of this building on it." Mr M'Dowall, writing in 1872, says: "The appearance of the ruin at the present differs little from the picture of it given by Grose, the

A Brother-in-Law of the Bruce.

5

Annandale Carlyles trace their descent from Crinan, Abthane of Dunkeld, whose son, Maldred, married Beatrice, daughter of King Malcolm II. About 1124, Robert de Brus, who had come into Scotland with David I., received a grant of Annandale from his royal friend and patron; and his grandson, also named Robert, on entering upon his inheritance, was created Lord of Annandale, or, as it was then called, Estrahannent. Under this third of the Scottish Bruces, and about the year 1185, the Carlyles held lands in Annandale. They also owned property in Cumberland, deriving their surname, in all probability, from the ancient capital of that picturesque region. By the daughter of the king, Maldred had a son, named Uchtred; and the eldest son of the latter was Robert of Kinmount. Uchtred's second son, Richard, received the lands of Newbie-on-the-Moor from his grandfather. Eudo de Carlyle, grandson of Richard, witnessed a charter to the monastery of Kelso, about 1207. The next head of the Carlyle family, Adam, had a charter of various lands in Annandale from William de Brus, second lord of the district, who died in 1215. Gilbert, son of Adam, who had joined in the disastrous. Baliol revolt, swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296.

Sir William de Carlyle, grandson of Gilbert, rose so high in the favour of his liege lord, Robert, Earl of Carrick, that the latter gave him his daughter Margaret in marriage; thus the head of the house of Carlyle became brother-in-law to the greatest and best of the

lapse of eighty-two years having made scarcely any impression upon it." The parish of Torthorwald, which contains the three villages of Torthorwald, Collin, and Rowcan, lies near the foot of Nithsdale, and is separated from Dumfries parish by Lochar Water.

Scottish monarchs, the famous Robert the Bruce. This is attested by a charter of the Patriot-King bestowing upon them the lands of Crumanston, in which the wife. of Sir William is designated "our dearest sister." It is further confirmed by a charter in which Sir William de Carlyle's son received a grant from his royal uncle of the lands of Colyn and Roucan, near Dumfries; the recipient is designated "William Karlo, the King's sister's son.' Sir William Carlyle of Torthorwald was slain at the fatal battle of Lochmaben, when Edward III. of England was engaged setting up the perfidious puppet Edward Baliol on the Scottish throne; and it is well worthy of note that, in the same engagement, there fell Sir Humphrey de Bois of Dryfesdale, supposed to be an ancestor of Hector Boece, the historian, and Sir Humphrey Jardine, the head of that Annandale house which in the present century produced Sir William Jardine, the eminent. naturalist. Few battle-fields can boast of an incident like this.

At the battle of Neville's Cross, Thomas Carlyle of Torthorwald fell while gallantly defending the person of the young King David; and when the latter was ransomed from his captivity in England, nine years afterwards, he displayed a grateful recollection of Carlyle's services; a charter, signed by the King, October 18, 1362, conveyed the lands of "Coulyn and Rowcan to our beloved cousin Susannah Carlyle, heir of Thomas de Torthorwald, who was killed defending our person at the battle of Durham, and to Robert Corrie, her spouse, belonging formerly to our cousin William de Carlyle." When the daughter of James I. crossed to France in 1436 to be married to Louis the Dauphin, William