THOMAS CARLYLE was born December 4, 1795, near the little village of Ecclefechan, in the district of Annandale, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Of his father he once said to Milburn :

CARLYLE'S FATHER AND THEIR PASTOR.

"I think, of all the men I have ever known, my father was quite the remarkablest. Quite a farmer sort of person, using vigilant thrift and careful industry; abiding by veracity and faith, and with an extraordinary insight into the very heart of things and men. I can remember that from my childhood I was surprised at his using many words of which I knew not the meaning; and even as I grew to manhood I was not a little puzzled by them, and supposed that they must be of his own coinage. But later, in my black-letter reading, I discovered that every one of them I could recall was of the sound Saxon stock which had lain buried, yet fruitful withal, in the quick memory of the humbler sort of folk.

"He was an elder of the Kirk, and it was very pleasant to see him in his daily and weekly relations with the minister of the parish. They had been friends from youth. That parish minister was the first person that ever taught me Latin, and I am not sure but that he laid a very great curse upon me in so doing. I think it is likely I should have been a wiser man, and certainly a godlier one, if I had followed in my father's steps, and left Greek and Latin to the fools that wanted them.

"The last time I ever saw my father was on my journey from Craigenputtoch to London. I was on my way to this modern Babylon, with a manuscript in my hand,

'Sartor Resartus' by name, which I wished to get into print. I came upon my fool's errand, and I saw iny father no more, for I had not been in town many days when tidings came that he was dead. He had gone to bed at night as well as usual, it seemed; but they found in the morning that he had passed from the realm of Sleep to that of Day. It was a fit end for such a life as his had been. He was a man into the four corners of whose house there had shined through the years of his pilgrimage, by day and by night, the light of the glory of God. Like Enoch of old, he had walked with God; and at the last he was not, for God took him.

"If I could only see such men now as were my father and his minister-men of such fearless and simple faith, with such firmness in holding on to the things that they believed, in saying and doing only what they thought was right, in seeing and hating the thing that they felt to be wrong—I should have far more hope for this British nation, and indeed for the world at large."

And then he burst out into one of those strange diatribes so characteristic of the man, which have gained for him the title of the "Censor of the Age," but which sound odd enough when coming from so voluminous a writer and so persistent a talker:

TALKERS AND ORATORS.

"Alas! Sir, the days in which our lot is cast are sad and evil. All Virtue and Belief and Courage seem to have run to Tongue; and he is the wisest man, and the most valiant, who is greatest Talker. The world has transformed itself into a Parliament, an assemblage

whose prime and almost only business is to talk, talk, talk, until the very heavens themselves, must have become deaf with the ceaseless vociferation. Our British nation occupies a sad preeminence in this matter. Demagogy, blustering, vain-glorious, hollow, far-sounding, unmeaning Talk, seems to me to be its great distinction. On earth I think is not its fellow to be found, except, Sir, in your own demagogic and oratorical nation. I am certainly afraid that modern Popular Oratory will be the ruin of the race; and that the verdict of the jury that shall sit upon the corpse of our Civilization will be, 'Suicide by an over-dose of Oratory.'

These talks, reproduced by Mr. Milburn, were held nearly twenty years ago, in summer evenings, when the two would be sitting together in the garden (or, as we should say, the yard) of his house in Chelsea, London. This is a piece of ground perhaps a hundred feet deep, with a grassplot in the center, having a tree at each of its four corners. From these trees is suspended an awning, under which are a pine table and a few wooden chairs. Upon the table are a canister of tobacco and several common clay pipes, their long stems tipped with sealing-wax. Milburn was frequently invited to "tea at six o'clock" at Carlyle's. At their first interview, tea having been dispatched, Carlyle said to his American guest: "I hope, sir, that, unlike many of your countrymen, you sometimes indulge in the solace of a pipe?" Milburn acknowledged that such was his

custom; whereupon Carlyle led the way into the garden, and said, as he offered the pipe and tobacco :

HIGH TARIFFS AND SMUGGLING.

"People in moderate circumstances in this country can not afford to offer their friends a good cigar, and I suppose only what you would consider very middling tobacco. The Government finds it needful to have such a revenue that it must needs lay a tax of some hundreds per cent. upon the poor man's pipe, while the rich man's glass of wine pays scarcely one-tenth of this impost. But I learn that there is as much tobacco smuggled into England as pays the duty. Thus, as you see, it is as it ever will be when the laws are unjust and onerous; for the Smuggler is the Lord Almighty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, saying to him, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.'"

After a long "flash of brilliant silence," occupied in pipe-devotion, Carlyle inquired, “You are a Wesleyan, Sir, I understand?' "I am; or rather, as we are called in America, a Methodist."

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"I must tell you, Sir," said Carlyle, "that I have ceased to think as highly of that people as I used to do. It was formerly my fortune, whenever I went to service, to attend their chapels. We've a queer place in this country called the Derbyshire Peaks; and I was there some years ago for a part of the summer, and went on the Lord's day to the Wesleyan chapel; and a man got

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up and preached with extraordinary fluency and vehemence, and I was astonished at his eloquence. And they told me that he was a nail-maker; that he wrought six days in the week with his own hands for his daily bread, and preached upon the seventh without charge. And when he had ended, another man came forward and prayed; and I was greatly moved by the unction of his prayer. And they told me that he was a rope-maker, and that he toiled as the other.

"But the sum and end of all the fluency and vehemence of the sermon, and of all the fervor of the prayer, was: 'Lord, save us from hell!' and I went away musing, sick at heart, saying to myself: 'My good fellows, why all this bother and noise? If it be God's will, why not go and be damned in quiet, and say never a word about it? And I, for one, would think far better of you.' So it seemed to me that your Wesleyans made cowards; and I would have no more to do with their praying and their preaching."

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In quite another vein was the next outburst. The conversation happened to turn upon ciations connected with that quarter of London; whereupon Carlyle said:

FRANKLIN'S SWIMMING-SCHOOL.

“Well, Sir, this part of the town, I think, should have an interest for people from your side of the water, for it has associations connected with a certain countryman of yours named Benjamin Franklin. When he was toiling as a journeyman printer in the metropolis, more than a century ago, he was accustomed to stroll upon the Sunday afternoon along the banks of Father Thames,